Local authorities in China have been told to rein in spending on a nationwide ‘toilet revolution’ campaign amid concerns that officials are flushing huge sums of money away as they compete to create ‘five-star’ restrooms.

Xi Jinping vowed to clean up China’s grotty public toilets in 2015, and the Chinese president since described his toilet revolution as a “concrete part of advancing our country’s revitalisation”.

About 70,000 toilets have already been built under the scheme, while another 64,000 are expected to be constructed or transformed by 2020.

Among the fancy toilets highlighted in Chinese media is a restroom in the north-eastern city of Shenyang where visitors can charge their phones, access wifi and use toilet paper via a dispenser which uses facial recognition.

"It is convenient, and it saves paper,” local official Zhang Peng told Xinhua news agency.

Elsewhere, a toilet costing more than 800,000 yuan (£90,000) was built in the south-western city of Chongqing in 2016, while in the same year, a whopping 2.7 million yuan (£300,000) was spent on a restroom in Menyuan in the north-western Qinghai province, where visitors can enjoy flat-screen televisions.

In an apparent bid to gain favour with Beijing, some officials have carried out other over-the-top improvements, including refrigerators packed with drinks, microwave ovens, LCD televisions, automatic shoe polishers, free toiletries and high-tech air-conditioning which dispels bad odours.