China’s poverty alleviation program is entering its most critical stage. At the end of 2015, Xi Jinping raised at the Central Work Conference on Poverty Alleviation the three questions: Whom shall we support? Who will act? What action should be taken? At the so-called “two sessions” of 2017, deputies to the NPC and members of the CPPCC from all over the country and all walks of society gave their answers to these “three questions,” as well as their plans on this regard for the coming year.
Q1: Whom shall we support?
ZHANG Qingwei
NPC deputy, Governor of Hebei Province
We’ll give priority to less privileged groups such as seniors living alone, the disabled, chronic disease sufferers, and people on low incomes.
XU Dazhe
NPC deputy, Governor of Hunan Province
We’ll ensure the livelihood of about 450,000 impoverished people who have lost their working capability.
XIAN Hui
NPC deputy, Chairman of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
We’ll accurately identify those living under the poverty line, establish files for each one of them, and keep track of their situation.
BU Xiaolin
NPC deputy, Chairperson of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
We must lift 200,000 people out of poverty, and ensure that 14 regional-level poverty-stricken counties and three national-level poverty-stricken countries can cast off poverty.
LOU Yangsheng
NPC deputy, Governor of Shanxi Province
We must lift 14 impoverished counties out of poverty, and relocate 120,000 people living in poverty to places with a more amenable living environment
ZI Guiju
NPC deputy, farmer
I used to do embroidery for myself, but now I lead my fellow women villagers in doing embroidery for a better life.
Q2: Who will act?
RUAN Chengfa
NPC deputy, Governor of Yunnan Province
We must cooperate with and learn from developed regions such as Shanghai municipality and Guangdong Province.
LI Guoying
NPC deputy, Governor of Anhui Province
We’ll further better the system of dispatching poverty-alleviation working teams to villages, and encourage enterprises to help as many as 1,000 villages cast off poverty.
WANG Wei
CPPCC member, Chairman of Guizhou Xingwei Group
Entrepreneurs can extend their businesses to rural areas to help impoverished people while at the same time gaining new development momentum.
YU Guowei
NPC deputy, Governor of Fujian Province
We’ll improve the civil participation mechanism of the poverty reduction program to include enterprises in lifting impoverished villages out of poverty.
YIN Li
NPC deputy, Governor of Sichuan Province
We should pair each impoverished village with a member of county-level leadership, a company, and an agricultural technician.
ZONG Licheng
CPPCC member, General Manager of Shandong Qingzhou Yaowang Pharmaceutical Factory
The government should encourage investment of private capital in the education sectors of less developed areas.
Q3: What Action should be taken?
SUN Zhigang
NPC deputy, Governor of Guizhou Province
We’ll complete relocation of 750,000 impoverished people as well as 3,500 remote villages or stockaded villages to places more suitable for human habitation in 2017.
LUO Yunlian
NPC deputy, CPC Secretariat of Gulu Village of Sichuan Province
Transportation infrastructure remains the bottleneck to eradicating poverty.
Member of the CPPCC Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of China Association for Promoting Democracy
Vocational education is an effective solution to halting the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
CHI Fulin
CPPCC member, Director of China Institute of Reform and Development
Supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector should meet consumers’ demand for green, safe agricultural products.
CPPCC member, Director of Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
We should establish an info-tracking system to identify people who have fallen back into poverty due to serious or chronic diseases.
XIAO Yan
CPPCC member, General Manager of Kunming Fubao Cultural City
It’s suggested to promote the rice-fish symbiosis mode which succeeded in Honghe Prefecture of Yunnan Province and blazed a way in combining environmental protection and poverty reduction.
(Source: China Development Gateway)