China has banned shark-fin soup from official government banquets and receptions, according to a report from the state-run Xinhua news agency, part of a crackdown on political extravagance that also covers bird’s-nest soup and other wild-animal products.

The Communist Party of China’s announcement doesn’t focus on the practice of shark finning, which kills an estimated 100 million sharks worldwide every year, and is framed more as an effort to limit the cost of publicly funded state banquets. Still, it fulfills a vow the government made in 2012 to phase out the controversial soup, brewed from fins sawed off…