Five Cases of Chinese Poverty Alleviation Studies

Lead photo

Ma Huihuang (left), head of the poverty alleviation team, and Shi Linjiao, a homeward-bound college student (centre), promotes local products via mobile live streaming at Shibadong Village, Huayuan County, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China’s Hunan Province, on May 15, 2020. Shibadong Village got rid of poverty in 2016. The village’s per capita net income rose to 14,668 yuan (nearly $2,275) in 2019 from 1,668 yuan (nearly $259) in 2013.  PHOTO | XINHUA/CHEN SIHAN

BEIJING

Poverty alleviation is a global challenge. Over the past eight years, China has lifted nearly 100 million people out of poverty, meeting the poverty eradication target set in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule and accomplishing its own poverty alleviation target as scheduled.

To answer the question of why China can eradicate absolute poverty, New China Research (NCR), a think tank of China’s Xinhua News Agency, published a research paper on February 28, in which the new concept of “Chinese Poverty Alleviation Studies” is proposed to explain China’s anti-poverty drive.

The following five typical cases in China’s poverty reduction practice are vivid illustrations of “Chinese Poverty Alleviation Studies”.

Case 1: Register the impoverished population and provide tailored assistance

A long-running practical problem has yet to be solved worldwide – how to accurately identify the poverty-stricken population, pin down the causes of their poverty and take customised measures for different people and households. Likewise, there was a time when China was also perplexed about how to provide targeted assistance to those in need, merely with rough numbers of impoverished households but no more detailed information.

Since 2014, China has established a national poverty alleviation information system. Through unified national standards and procedures, the poverty-stricken population and households were registered and their data collected. The lists of those households were put up for public monitoring and submitted to authorities at various levels for review and approval. Supporting mechanisms of complaints and cross-department data comparison are also put in place to verify and remove “falsely registered impoverished households” and ensure the accuracy of information.

With the database containing information of all poverty-stricken population, it is obvious to see who needs to be lifted out of poverty, what progress has been made in poverty alleviation, who helps them cast off poverty, and how poverty is shaken off. All these efforts are made to ensure genuine poverty eradication.

Case 2: Targeted poverty alleviation brings the rebirth of Shibadong Village

On November 3, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Shibadong, an impoverished Miao ethnic minority village located in China’s Hunan province, and gave an important instruction on poverty alleviation: “Seeking truth from facts, acting according to local conditions, giving household-specific guidance and taking targeted measures.”

When implementing the targeted poverty alleviation policy, Shibadong Village took the lead in formulating a “seven-step method” for identifying impoverished households with specific actions, including household application, public evaluation, three-level joint review (involving village committees, township authorities and poverty alleviation task forces), public announcement, township audit, county-level approval, and household registration. Accurate identification was thus made and targeted assistance provided.

In light of local conditions, the villagers began to develop breeding and planting industries, including growing kiwifruit, in sync with promoting other sectors such as catering, labour services, bed and breakfast, tourism, Miao embroidery and bottled water. The per capita income of the impoverished households increased from 1,825 yuan ($280) in 2014 to 12,483 yuan ($1,930) in 2019. Walking out of the centuries-long poverty, the village has enjoyed a rebirth and demonstrated “a sea change in the mountain area.”

Case 3: East-West pairing-up paves way for regional coordinated development

Qingchuan, a county on the border of Sichuan and Gansu provinces in southwest China, suffered heavy damage in the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 and was one of China’s least developed counties. With the support of Wuxing District of Huzhou City in east China’s Zhejiang Province, 5.4 million tea seedlings from Zhejiang have been planted in Qingchuan, a 1,517-mu (about 1,011,333 square meters) white tea garden has been built, and an industrial chain has been introduced to the county from the east coast province.

In its fight against poverty, China, through nationwide mobilisation, has set up an east-west pairing-up cooperation mechanism involving personnel support, financial aid, industrial cooperation and labour coordination. For example, Zhejiang Province, by sharing resources and drawing on each other’s strengthens with its partner region, has formed a multi-faceted industrial assistance system, including jointly building industrial cooperation parks, specialised markets with distinctive features and poverty alleviation workshops.

The robust development of poverty alleviation industries helped lift Qingchuan out of poverty in 2019.

Wu Bingfang, a local official from Wuxing District, said that in the past three years, Wuxing District had invested hundreds of millions of yuan in Qingchuan to help build an industrial cluster with an annual output of 100,000 commercial-use refrigerators and its supporting projects. “It is the bounden duty of those who have become better-off to help those still lagging behind,” Wu said.

In China’s poverty alleviation endeavor, prosperous counties in east China like Wuxing District and poverty-stricken ones in the west have paired up in cooperation for poverty alleviation. As many enterprises are encouraged to invest and start businesses in the west, agricultural products sold to the east from the west are increasing, with poverty alleviation through education and health care also deployed in the region. The coordination of regional development paves way for common prosperity.

Case 4: 80,000-plus photovoltaic power stations light up the “road out of poverty”

In Zigui County, near the Three Gorges Dam, in central China’s Hubei Province, 50 photovoltaic power stations have been built in recent years, with a total installed capacity of 10.86 megawatts. By the end of September 2020, these power stations had generated a total of 42,579,210kWh of electricity. Their revenues, 45.85 million yuan ($7 million) in total, were all fed back to the 51 key poverty-stricken villages in the county, benefiting more than 9,200 poor households and more than 25,000 people.

These photovoltaic power projects, which utilise solar energy resources to generate power and use the profits for poverty alleviation, is called “photovoltaic poverty alleviation power stations.”

In light of local conditions, the power stations are built in four types, including those for household use and those owned by village collectives, which are entrusted to a professional third party for market-oriented operation.

In the distribution of benefits, subsidies for the development of industries in poor villages, subsidies for the maintenance of public facilities in villages, and public service jobs are created in a bid to incentivise poverty-stricken people to work and avoid equal distribution.

Case 5: E-commerce brings markets closer

Longnan City in northwest China’s Gansu Province was located in a contiguous poor area in the Qinba Mountains. In recent years, by developing e-commerce, the local government has built an Internet marketing system for a batch of well-sold agricultural products such as walnuts, Chinese prickly ash, olives, Chinese medicinal herbs and honey.

Many poverty-stricken areas like Longnan have abundant high-quality agricultural products, but due to poor transportation and inadequate access to information and market, those agricultural resources couldn’t be turned into income. In its efforts to improve infrastructure in poverty-stricken areas, China has focused on improving weak links in telecommunications. At present, 98 percent of China’s poverty-stricken villages have access to fiber-optic communication, and e-commerce is available to all 832 poverty-stricken counties.

Initially guided and promoted by the government, a mechanism connecting e-commerce platforms with impoverished households has been established. With the help of new internet business forms, the poverty alleviation programme through e-commerce opened up channels of labour, logistics and information flow, shortened the time and distance of delivering products from Longnan producers to the global market, and increased the income of the poor population and regions.

Second photo

Workers make bags at a poverty-alleviation workshop in Hezheng County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Gansu Province, on October 17, 2020. Relying on the platform of east-west pairing-up cooperation for poverty alleviation, Hezheng County has introduced shoe-making, bag-making and mushroom cultivation to help poor households find jobs near their homes through poverty-alleviation workshops.  PHOTO | XINHUA/SHI YOUDONG