Chinese more likely to own dogs than eat them

China, as we all know, is subject to a large measure of bureaucracy. But did you know that the Chinese have a special law limiting the size of dogs in Beijing?

This wonderful piece of lunacy was revealed to me when I was walking back to the yachting venue in Qingdao recently, got a bit hot, bought a bottle of water and sat on a park bench to drink it and watch the world go by.

I say park bench. It was set into a little slab of green off the main road - which meant the diesel fumes had just a little further to travel before penetrating my respiratory system.

So, looking for something to distract me from this slow death, I spied on the bench opposite me a Chinese guy in his 50s and with a handsome golden Labrador. I am fond of these animals so nodded at him, waved my water bottle at his dog and said: "Nice dog".

To my surprise, he spoke good English - he'd lived in Hong Kong for a long spell - and we chatted away about dogs for a while until he told me that he wouldn't have been allowed to have his labrador in Beijing

Why not, I asked, full of wonderment. Because the Labrador would contravene the height regulations for dogs in Beijing, he said.

This didn't sound right to me and I had to get to the yachting so I said goodbye and wandered off. But I later did some research and discovered that he was absolutely correct. There is a law in Beijing which stipulates that no dog can be over 35cm. If such a dog is discovered, it can be 'intercepted' and sent to the big kennel in the sky.

And I thought all those Pekinese I've seen were just because this was the ancient home of the little dog with the face that looks like it ran into the back of a bus.

My gran had a Pekinese. Stupid thing, had a problem with snot and breathing, as I recall - a reminder that some dog breeders should be taken out the back and their heads rammed into a concrete wall until their face resembles a Pekinese.

Still, they are better than spaniels (the Pekinese, not the breeders...) which, in spite of their wonderfully mournful expression, are monumentally brainless dogs...

But, I digress. It turns out there is a little counter-culture group of dog owners in Beijing who flout the 35cm rule - but who have to exercise their large dogs at night so as to avoid the attention of the dogcatchers who would doubtless take the dog, make them fill in eleventy-nine forms and then their file would be marked as 'Possible Enemy Of The State'.

Actually, I just made that last bit up but I must say...I have never heard of anything so goddamn silly in all my life.

In spite of all the media stories about people eating dog in China - and you can get it here but it's nowhere near as prevalent as we media would have you believe - there is a pet boom going on in this huge land. People are far, far more likely to own dogs than eat them.

There's a sentence you don't write every day.

Apparently, however, the prejudice against big dogs stems from Mao Tse-Tung days when the great man scorned people who kept pets as bourgeois time-wasters.

Now I have examined this from every angle and I cannot see why a dog of more than 35cm is more bourgeois than a dog of less than 35cm. Conspicuous consumption, maybe? And I say that without intending a play on words at all.

And, in the wonderful way of bureaucrats everywhere, there are exceptions. Foreign diplomats are allowed to have any size dog at all and can apparently be seen parading all manner of large beasts through the streets of Beijing while the locals cower inside with their tape measures, fearfully ensuring that Pongo The Pekinese hasn't had a growth spurt.

Now, I ask you - is this nutso or what?

There is talk that there will be a crackdown on large and unregistered dogs after we foreign devils have all gone home.

If you ask me, they should round up all the bureaucrats who maintain and enforce such loony laws and give them something useful to do - like cleaning Beijing's roads with a toothbrush.

But, as for now, I can sleep safe in my bed tonight knowing that I will not be attacked by a vicious dog of over 35cm.

Sniffer dogs may be allowed to break the rules. Photo / AP