BEIJING - Golf is too expensive and a waste of China's valuable land and resources, a commentary by the state-run news agency said Thursday.

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In a signed commentary, the Xinhua News Agency said too many golf courses had been built in China, taking up badly needed farmland, sucking up scarce water and even running counter to the creation of a harmonious society, the government's lofty goal meaning the inclusion of the poor as well as the better off in a country with a rapidly expanding wealth gap.

"Already scarce land resources have been occupied by building golf courses. It is an irrational waste of the land," said Xinhua, adding it was fine to have an "appropriate" number of golf courses.

"But under the circumstances that some primary and middle schools do not even have simple sports fields, putting so much money and so much land to the use for so few people will unavoidably harm the public interest and runs against fair demands for a harmonious society," it said.

The central government has stopped issuing permits for new courses, but local officials have ignored that order.

It is because they are "blindly striving to attract investment and an image project," Xinhua said.

Last month, Peking University shelved plans to build a practice green after a storm of criticism on the Internet and in the media that golf was too elitist for a country where hundreds of millions of people still live in poverty.

The university, and several other Chinese schools, wanted to acquaint business students with golf to prepare them for a commercial world where deals are often made on the links.

Earlier in October, Xiamen University in the southeastern city of Xiamen made golf a required class for economics and computer software majors. A professor there was quoted as saying it was intended to help students improve their job prospects.