MANY people may remember 2020 for China’s effective containment of COVID-19, but an even greater achievement this year will be China’s eradication of absolute poverty. This has been done through targeted poverty alleviation – a philosophy that Chinese President Xi Jinping first crafted and honed during his 17 years in Fujian Province. His policies and practices were so insightful and effective that many were adopted nationwide, long before anyone dreamed that the young provincial leader would take the helm of the country as well as the Communist Party of China.

THIS year is the final stretch in China’s anti-poverty campaign, which intends to lift all rural residents still languishing in poverty in the country above the currently set poverty line and mark the completion of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

IT was on the morning of a drizzling day in late August that Qiesha Cier and his wife hurriedly brought indoors the walnuts they had harvested a few days before that were drying outside in the yard.

HAVING a poor education, Mou’se Labo, a young shepherd of the Yi ethnic group, was resigned to living in the mountainous cliff village for life, never imagining he and his family would ever move into a new modern community at the foot of the mountain.

IT took a whole year to build a 3.8-kilometer long road leading to a village, with an average progress of only ten meters per day.

LIANGSHAN Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province is one of China’s poorest regions. This is mainly due to scant natural resources and a pitiless natural environment that isolates it from other places.

CHINA is concerned with helping ensure that all of its citizens have sufficient food and clothing, safe housing, and access to compulsory education and basic healthcare services as part of its poverty alleviation campaign. It is crucial that impoverished people are motivated and actively engaged in the undertaking.

LIANGSHAN Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province brims with fruit harvests during the months of autumn.

IT’s a misty morning in late August at the remote Jiebanada Village. Six-year-old Jineng Xiaofei is already up, washing himself and having breakfast.

EARLY on the morning of August 21, 15-year-old Relie Youcong and his grandparents set out to harvest black tartary buckwheat, a type of staple grain for ethnic Yi people. In less than 10 days, the ethnic Yi boy would return to school, and he planned to help his family harvest the grain they planted on the hillside before his leaving.

UPON completing the poverty eradication task at the end of this year, China will achieve the poverty alleviation goal set in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, which is of great significance to both China and the world.

THE clean energy industry has become an important engine for global economic growth. In the context of the global economic recession and oil price fluctuations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry is playing a more significant role in boosting global economic transformation in a green and low-carbon manner.

AFTER the revised regulation on domestic waste classification came into force in Beijing on May 1 this year, waste sorting has gained renewed public attention.

WITH the right momentum and united focused effort, experts believe the post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan is crucial to ensuring that the world achieves the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the goals set by the Paris Agreement.