Li Daokui: The Chinese Path to Poverty Eradication
Since the development of human society to the present day, the productive forces and living standards in many countries have been greatly improved; however, from a global perspective, poverty remains a major factor restricting the development of modern human society. Through fourteen "Five-Year Plans," China has gradually eliminated absolute poverty and achieved the grand goal of finishing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects [1]. Reviewing and summarizing the historical experience of China’s poverty alleviation is not only conducive to continuing the consolidation and expansion of the achievements of the targeted poverty alleviation [2] struggle, but also provides important experience for other countries to draw upon in their own efforts to eliminate poverty.
I. Poverty is a Disgrace to Modern Human Society
Poverty is a disgrace to modern human society, and a large number of people in the contemporary world still live in poverty. The United Nations has provided us with a clear definition of poverty—the phenomenon where basic human needs are severely deprived has not yet been eliminated, such as deprivation of food, shelter, safe drinking water, basic sanitation facilities, education, and crucially, access to information. The World Bank and the United Nations measure the impoverished population by whether their daily total consumption is lower than $1.90 (calculated by the purchasing power of the 2011 US dollar). In 2017, the impoverished population accounted for 9.3% of the world's population. In other words, nearly 700 million people in the world live in poverty, and the impoverished population is almost entirely concentrated in several geographical areas, namely India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The impoverished population in these five countries accounts for 55% of the world's total. From a different perspective, 87% of the world's impoverished population comes from two regions: Sub-Saharan adventure Africa and South Asia. This means we can concentrate poverty reduction efforts in these geographical areas.
Why is the problem of poverty a disgrace to the whole of modern human society? In today's world, modern humanity has accumulated a vast productive capacity that exceeds the basic needs of all people, which could have kept every member away from poverty. There is enough grain and meat in the world to feed everyone; humanity can produce 2.7 billion tons of grain such as rice, wheat, and corn a year, meaning each person could consume 1 kg of grain per day, which is 1.6 times the biological energy required for each person's activities. However, we use surplus grain to produce alcohol; in fact, just slightly reducing the production of baijiu [3] could help people living in poverty feed themselves. The world produces 330 million tons of meat every year, meaning each person could consume 0.85 kg per week, which also indicates that the world has enough meat production capacity to feed everyone. According to the views of Greek health experts, we consume too much meat, which is detrimental to our health. According to the World Bank or United Nations standards for the impoverished—a total daily consumption of no less than $1.90—we could provide funds for those living in poverty; it would only take 1% of the income of the richest 10% of the people in the world to eliminate poverty. In 2019, the total military expenditure of all countries in the world was $1.9 trillion; if all countries reduced their military spending by 25% and donated the money to the poor, we could eliminate poverty. All the above figures show that poverty is a disgrace, yet in today's world, poverty still exists.
Poverty is a disgrace to everyone in today's world, and we should take global action to work together to eliminate it. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals point out that all countries stand together, and the first of the 17 goals to be achieved by 2030 is the elimination of poverty. However, despite our consensus and our productive capacity, we still have a long way to go to achieve this goal.
II. China's Great Achievements in Eliminating Poverty
China has made a huge contribution to the world in eliminating poverty. According to World Bank data, the proportion of China's impoverished population dropped from 66% in 1992 to 0.5% in 2016. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, in the past 40 years, China's rural impoverished population decreased by 740 million, yet in rural areas in 2019, there were still nearly 5.5 million people living in poverty. China's efforts in poverty elimination over the past 40 years account for 70% of the world's total. Over these 40 years, China has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty. In 2020, China achieved the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of zero extreme poverty 10 years ahead of schedule. China is the most populous country; more than 70 years ago, the US Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that successive Chinese governments faced the problem of how to feed the people, and so far no Chinese government had succeeded. In 1974, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held its first conference in Rome, Italy, and many people said that China could not feed itself, which would be the biggest problem restricting China's development. By 2019, China had solved the food problem and made great progress. The candidate nominated by China was elected as the leader of the FAO by most member states; this shows that China's progress is recognized by the world.
III. The Process of China's Poverty Elimination
How did China achieve such great progress? China achieved the goal of eliminating poverty through four stages.
The first stage was the era of the planned economy from 1949 to 1978. In the first 30 years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China applied the principle of egalitarianism—that the people should be equal—and implemented a series of projects directly provided by the government to support people in poverty. Local governments provided sufficient support to the impoverished population. In urban areas, local governments issued initiatives to employers to help impoverished people; the government and employers provided jobs for the disabled and food or medical services for disabled families in difficulty. In rural areas, villages were collectivized, and these collectives were responsible for the lives of extremely poor families and also provided basic food. In the first stage, the total amount of subsidies was generally very low. In this stage, although China used the principle of egalitarianism to ensure that extremely poor families received support, because the level of economic development was very low, a large number of people still lived in poverty.
The second stage was from 1978 to 2012, when poverty alleviation was placed on the government's agenda. In this stage, China identified 18 specialized hardship areas where the amount of arable land and water resources was extremely scarce. The central government provided special support for these 18 regions, shifting from relief-style poverty alleviation to development-style poverty alleviation, and formulated special policies such as poverty alleviation transfer payments, fiscal and tax incentives, and interest subsidies. The government supported extremely poor areas through comprehensive projects, such as using special grants to help these areas build production facilities and factories to attract enterprises. In 1987, the central government announced a poverty alleviation plan, promising that from 1994 to 2004, it would help 80 million people obtain basic food and clothing and help people bid farewell to poverty. In addition, the central government established a specialized agency—the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development—to lead the nation's poverty alleviation work.
The third stage was from 2012 to 2020, which we call the stage of tackling poverty and finishing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. The Chinese government announced that it would eliminate all absolute poverty by 2020. The elimination of absolute poverty should be based on five components: food, clothing, compulsory education, basic medical services, and safe housing. The keyword for poverty reduction and alleviation projects was "precision" (精准 jīngzhǔn), including precision in poverty alleviation targets, project arrangements, fund utilization, household guarantee measures, population distribution, and poverty alleviation results. This was a very comprehensive and integrated project. To this end, the government established a very detailed registration card; every impoverished person needed to be registered and had a special ID, and Party and government cadres were also assigned to every impoverished village to carry out "point-to-point" assistance.
The fourth stage is from 2020 to the present. 2020 was a landmark year, as China announced that it had eliminated absolute poverty within its borders. At this stage, the Chinese government proposed two initiatives: the rural revitalization strategy and common prosperity. The rural revitalization strategy is to ensure that China's rural areas enjoy the same infrastructure and public services as urban areas, achieving the modernization of infrastructure and the equalization of public services in urban and rural areas. Common prosperity means that all members of Chinese society enjoy equal development opportunities, such as schooling, employment, receiving training, and starting businesses; it also means the government will provide support for people with disabilities.
IV. Important Experiences of China's Poverty Elimination
Poverty is a very important issue. 70% of the world's poverty-reduced population comes from China, and China has made a huge contribution to the elimination of poverty in the world. China's experience can be used as a reference for other countries. This article summarizes six experiences of China's poverty elimination.
First, the top leadership makes the highest level of commitment. The country's top leader should be committed to eliminating poverty. As far as China since the New Era is concerned, the ultimate driving force comes from President Xi Jinping. President Xi pointed out that rural living standards must be improved, especially those of impoverished villagers; in the process of achieving this goal, no single impoverished area or impoverished person should be left behind. Therefore, President Xi inspected many impoverished villages in 14 contiguous poor areas throughout the country. At all relevant major meetings, President Xi would discuss the issue of eliminating poverty, mentioning that poverty reduction is the primary task. For local government officials, if the poverty alleviation work is not completed, they cannot be promoted. The highest level of commitment from the top leadership is very important; other countries such as Bangladesh and India can follow suit by making poverty reduction their first priority.
Second, establish systems and institutions for relief and poverty reduction. Reducing poverty cannot be done by relying on money alone; the key is to establish a network of institutions and adopt a one-to-one strategy. There are about 2,500 counties in China, each being an administrative unit. Counties in eastern China are usually wealthier; 343 counties in nine provinces in eastern China were paired with some of the 573 impoverished counties in 14 provinces in central and western China to help the west and impoverished areas eliminate poverty. As for enterprises, both state-owned and private enterprises are also willing to pair up with impoverished villages or counties. In addition, China has a large number of Party and government cadres who were directly sent to impoverished areas as "village-resident assistance cadres" (驻村帮扶干部 zhùcūn bāngfú gànbù); some worked in universities and some in the central government, and they were temporarily sent to impoverished areas to help solve the problem of escaping poverty. By the end of 2020, China had dispatched more than 3 million cadres to serve as village-resident cadres in impoverished villages and 255,000 personnel to serve as members of village-resident work teams.
Third, the government helps build markets and lets markets play their role, creating markets for products and labor from areas with high poverty rates. Products from impoverished areas enter the market after careful certification, and the government encourages consumers to purchase these products to help production in impoverished areas become profitable; this is what we call "nurturing the market." China has certified 136,130 types of products in 22 provinces, involving 1,836 counties and 39,523 suppliers. By the end of 2020, the consumption scale of these poverty-alleviation products had exceeded 200 billion yuan. The government should help this market develop. Without government help, people from wealthy areas might only value brands from wealthy areas and be reluctant to consume in this market, so this market needs the government to protect and nurture it.
Fourth, environmental protection plans should be combined with poverty reduction. Often, people are poor because the local ecological conditions are terrible and unsuitable for modern human life. The ecological environment in parts of western China is unsuitable for human habitation; local residents should be moved out, and the local ecological environment should be restored as an environmental protection zone left for animals and plants. Therefore, the Chinese government opened some relocation projects to move local villagers from environmentally sensitive or fragile areas to other regions. In this way, mountainous areas can implement better environmental protection measures, the probability of landslides is reduced, and farmers also obtain employment opportunities and corresponding health conditions. According to incomplete statistics, about 9.6 million resettled impoverished people have moved into new homes. These measures in China are very useful for some African and South Asian countries; environmental protection and poverty alleviation can be combined, which is a win-win combination. But this is difficult to implement because impoverished farmers may be reluctant to leave, so the government needs to patiently persuade farmers to leave their poor homes and provide them with good material conditions.
Fifth, enrich and sublimate the spiritual world of the impoverished masses. Eliminating poverty is not just about providing material help. The spiritual world of the impoverished masses is generally poor; they may have self-doubt, superstitious ideas, and narrow-minded thoughts. It is very important to open the minds of the poor, improve their spiritual literacy, and enrich and sublimate their spiritual world.
Sixth, follow-up poverty alleviation projects are needed. China's experience tells us that poverty alleviation is like riding a bicycle: you need to keep pedaling; if you stop pedaling, you will fall. Therefore, there must be follow-up projects to reduce and eliminate poverty. The 19th National Congress of the CPC [4] made an important strategic deployment, namely the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, one of whose important goals is to continue to consolidate and expand the achievements of the struggle against poverty. In February 2021, China established a new ministerial-level agency—the National Rural Revitalization Administration—whose main function is to implement the rural revitalization strategy. The Chinese government promises that by 2035, decisive progress will be made in rural revitalization, and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas will be basically achieved; by 2050, the comprehensive revitalization of the countryside will be realized, and the goals of robust agriculture, beautiful countryside, and wealthy farmers will be fully achieved.
In summary, poverty is a disgrace to modern human society, and we should be committed to eliminating it. According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Plan, the world should eliminate poverty by 2030. In the process of poverty reduction, China has made a huge contribution. In the past 40 years, China's poverty reduction quantity accounted for 70% of the world's total, and its historical experience in eliminating absolute poverty can serve as a reference for other countries.