World
China’s war on poverty continues despite the pandemic
By Sherry Qin  ·  2020-10-02  ·   Source: Web Exclusive

Chinese President Xi Jinping first put forward the concept of “targeted poverty relief” in 2013 and then pledged to eradicate extreme poverty in China by 2020.

The number of rural citizens living in poverty has declined to 5.51 million people by the end of 2019 from 98.99 million in 2012, according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

But the corona virus disease (COVID-19) that suddenly hit the world and halted China’s economic activities for three months disrupted the pace of poverty alleviation.

Despite the disruption of supply chains and trade channels for farm produce that rural residents greatly rely on for their living, the Chinese Government has not given up the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by the end of the year.

Poverty alleviation in the context of COVID-19 has propelled officials at all levels to be more flexible and resilient in terms of policies and resource coordination.

Behind-the-scene stories

Voices from the frontlines: China’s war on poverty, a documentary released in July, tells the behind-the-scene stories and how the unprecedented campaign has been carried out in China.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a previous investment banker and China expert, is the host and writer of the documentary. Kuhn, who has lived and worked in China since the 1980s, visited China’s remote rural areas across the country, covering tens of thousands of families with customized plans under the poverty alleviation campaign.

“It (the poverty alleviation program) was not just targeted, it was monitored on a monthly basis,” Kuhn said at a recent webinar discussing his documentary presented by the New York-based China Institute.

“Each family would have a book and you could see it every month, the cadre in charge, generally a young member of the Communist Party of China who was assigned there, would have to fill it out how are they doing on their plan,” Kuhn said. Then this was all collated and sent to Beijing for collective analysis.

In the film, Kukn and his director, Peter Getzels, followed young party members, who taught farmers to access micro loans, diversify their crops and become better entrepreneurs. Getzels said “the observational approach” and “an international distance to stories” endow the film a “bottom-up resonance” with audience.

Huang Haijun, a 33-year-old Party member who worked in a village in south China’s Hainan Province, is the first interviewee in the documentary. Leaving his wife and family in the city behind, he has worked in the remote village for two years. Huang is an epitome of around 750,000 young Party members working at village level across the country to lift families out of poverty.

The documentary also reveals the five layers of local governments that coordinated the efforts to implement the Central Government’s policies. There is “the provincial level, the municipal level, the county level, the township level and then the village level,” Kuhn said.

At the bottom of the hierarchy, Huang and other cadres translated policies and directives from above to specific projects suitable to the villages and monitor their growth on particular projects.

Another goal of Kuhn and his team was to provide a window to understand China’s political system. “I've said all political systems have trade-offs but to look at the Chinese system objectively you can see a remarkable parallel between how they've attacked on poverty with their war on containing the corona virus,” Kuhn said. “Irrespective of all the politics and all the conspiracy theories and rumors back and forth, China has done a remarkable job of containing the COVID-19.”

Poverty alleviation amid COVID-19

Wenyan Yang, a development expert from the United Nations (UN), said at the webinar that the COVID-19 not only set back China’s economic growth, but also had “a dampening effect” on the poverty alleviation efforts.

Yet she believes the Chinese Government, which has been “extremely committed to poverty eradication,” can achieve the goal by the end of the year. “Once they make a commitment, they have not only the political will but also the implementation capacity that is the thousands of cadres working at the village level,” Wang said.

President Xi called the goal a “solemn pledge” made by the Party to the people. In the Government Work Report delivered at the delayed annual session of the National People’s Congress in May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang prioritized stabilizing employment and ensuring living standards, and winning the battle against poverty in all poor counties.

Policy wise, China has launched nationwide pro-consumption projects to boost sales of products from poor areas in an effort to promote poverty alleviation. Wang Dayang, an officer of the poverty alleviation leading group office, said at a press conference on August 28 that companies can submit applications to county-level poverty alleviation departments to identify their products as poverty alleviation products. Customers have been encouraged to buy poverty alleviation products to show sympathy for and support the impoverished farmers.

Mayors and county heads have also taken advantage of e-commerce platforms and livestreaming to promote agricultural products for poverty-stricken areas.

Like the battle against the corona virus, the poverty alleviation campaign demonstrated China’s systematic coordination of labor and fund and layers of governing bodies to enforce the policies.

“There are also problems and challenges some of which will appear in the film, like whether the approaches used are sustainable,” said Qin Gao, a social policy professor at Columbia University.

Gao hopes China’s social assistance program, Dibao or minimum income guarantee, will be combined with the targeted poverty alleviation policies to “be the last resort” that low-income people can rely on.

Copyedited by Madhusudan Chaubey

Comments to linan@bjreview.com 

China
Opinion
World
Business
Lifestyle
Video
Multimedia
 
China Focus
Documents
Special Reports
 
About Us
Contact Us
Advertise with Us
Subscribe
Partners: China.org.cn   |   China Today   |   China Pictorial   |   People's Daily Online   |   Women of China   |   Xinhua News Agency   |   China Daily
CGTN   |   China Tibet Online   |   China Radio International   |   Global Times   |   Qiushi Journal
Copyright Beijing Review All rights reserved 京ICP备08005356号 京公网安备110102005860