According to statistics of the World Bank, the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped from nearly 40 percent in the 1990s to the current level of about 10 percent, and the majority of the reduction comes from China. Eliminating absolute poverty that has plagued humanity for thousands of years is an accomplishment of great significance for the Chinese nation and for humanity as a whole.
In China’s long history going back thousands of years, most of that time was spent as a large agricultural country. Confucius regards “benevolence,” namely equality and friendliness, as the highest moral principle, which is also the foundation of Chinese culture. However, because of the land, resource constraints, and the backward feudal system, ordinary people suffered from hunger and poverty, which became the direct cause of regime change in Chinese history.
After leading the Chinese people to establish a socialist system, the Communist Party of China had taken the pursuit of happiness for the people as its responsibility, and promised that by 2020, the rural poor population would be entirely rid of poverty, and absolute poverty would be completely eliminated in China. By the end of 2017, China had helped more than 700 million people shake off poverty, which is considered a “miracle” in the history of world poverty reduction.
Poverty is the main form of income inequality. Facts prove that the market cannot solve this inequality problem, and it must be resolved through government actions. After a long period of efforts, China has used its advantages in the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to formulate a set of strategies for reducing poverty, and has contributed the “Chinese approach” to the world’s poverty reduction.
After the reform and opening-up started, China eliminated poverty on a large scale through development-oriented poverty relief. At that time, the government changed the traditional mode of scattered relief towards comprehensive poverty alleviation efforts, focusing on economic development, supporting and encouraging people in poor areas to improve production conditions, explore local resources, boost the commodity economy, and enhance self-accumulation and self-development capabilities. Since then, a series of regional development strategies such as the Western Development Drive have played a crucial role in reducing poverty.
Then, China’s poverty relief and development cause entered a new stage. In 2013, shortly after taking office, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed targeted poverty alleviation, which means accurately identifying poverty-reducing targets and focusing special poverty alleviation funds on them. Since then, through a complete poverty alleviation and development management system and a new poor county assessment mechanism, China gradually established archives for nearly 100 million low-income people and 120,000 poor villages to enhance their self-development capabilities and assist local development, developing industries that suit local conditions. At the same time, the government increased support for education, medical care, and culture. There is no other country in the world that has conducted such fine, orderly, and large-scale poverty-relief work. The socialist system, with its advantages, is an important guarantee for China’s historic achievements in poverty reduction.
Xi Jinping proposed to help the poor out of poverty for good. According to Wan Guanghua, principal economist at the Asian Development Bank, this formulation includes two aspects: first, it is to completely uplift people out of poverty and prevent them from sliding back into poverty; second, it refers to rising income, but also to ensure the overall quality of life of the people, including better education, healthcare, and the environment. “This requirement of President Xi is a creative development of poverty alleviation theories. It has great historical and practical significance for the global poverty reduction and realization of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” said Wan.
China’s unique poverty reduction experience has been highly recognized by international organizations. United Nations Development Program Administrator Helen Clark called on all countries to share China’s poverty reduction experience. During the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 2017, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said that China’s achievements in poverty reduction in the past five years were one of the greatest events in human history.
