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SCMP

This article was first published on February 26, 2021.
By Mimi Lau
Xi claims victory in eliminating extreme poverty
China has declared com­plete suc­cess in elim­in­at­ing extreme poverty, with Pres­id­ent Xi Jin­ping hail­ing the lift­ing of 850 mil­lion people out of des­ti­tu­tion as an “unpre­ced­en­ted accom­plish­ment” unmatched by any nation in mod­ern his­tory.
In a speech at a cere­mony in Beijing yes­ter­day (February 25, 2021) to com­mend poverty fight­ers, broad­cast live by state tele­vi­sion, Xi said his sig­na­ture cam­paign to improve live­li­hoods had added 100 mil­lion people to the total dur­ing his eight years in power.
“There is no other coun­try that could achieve such remark­able poverty alle­vi­ation pro­gress within such a short time,” he said.
The suc­cess in fight­ing poverty has been pegged to ambi­tious eco­nomic reform, and comes at a time the nation is recov­er­ing ahead of other global powers from the pan­demic amid open ten­sions with the United States.
“Erad­ic­at­ing extreme poverty is yet another remark­able mir­acle of man­kind worthy of his­toric remem­brance. It is a great hon­our belong­ing to the Chinese Com­mun­ist Party and the people,” Xi said.

He was speak­ing ahead of the annual par­lia­ment­ary meet­ings known as the “two ses­sions” next week, when Beijing will unveil a detailed road map for medium-term growth, eye­ing more reli­ance on domestic con­sump­tion.
Poverty alle­vi­ation has been a long-term goal for the party since it took power in 1949, and a bed­rock found­a­tion for its man­date. Pro­gress has gathered pace along with its open­ing up and eco­nomic reform over the past dec­ades.
After becom­ing pres­id­ent in 2013, Xi lis­ted poverty elim­in­a­tion as one of the core mis­sions for his admin­is­tra­tion and set a dead­line of 2020. The party is also expec­ted to declare suc­cess in build­ing a “mod­er­ately pros­per­ous soci­ety” next, elev­at­ing liv­ing stand­ards to cement its lead­er­ship and legit­im­acy.
Apart from the offi­cial nar­rat­ive, China’s suc­cess on the poverty-elim­in­a­tion front has also been recog­nised glob­ally. The World Bank acknow­ledged back in 2017 the coun­try’s “unmatched record”, account­ing for more than 70 per cent of global suc­cess in erad­ic­at­ing extreme poverty since the 1980s.
Xi said yes­ter­day that 98.99 mil­lion people had been freed from abject poverty after an eightyear cam­paign, and that res­id­ents of more than 800 counties, with aver­age incomes of less than 4,000 yuan (HK$4,800) a year, had been removed from the offi­cial poverty list.
The coun­try inves­ted nearly 1.6 tril­lion yuan in poverty alle­vi­ation over the past eight years, accord­ing to the offi­cial Xin­hua news agency.
Xi presen­ted awards and cer­ti­fic­ates to grass-roots party sec­ret­ar­ies, aca­dem­ics, school prin­cipals and oth­ers for their key con­tri­bu­tions to the nation’s cause.
They were seated along with state lead­ers on the rostrum of the Great Hall of the People. More than 1,980 people and at least 1,500 col­lect­ive units were also hon­oured.

Xi attrib­uted the suc­cess of the cam­paign to pre­cise strategies focused on house­holds and indi­vidu­als with tailored meas­ures to lift pro­ductiv­ity.
He ordered cadres to con­sol­id­ate poverty alle­vi­ation accom­plish­ments and con­tinue to build on trans­itional rural revital­isa­tion meas­ures, to achieve com­mon prosper­ity. “Shak­ing off poverty is not the fin­ish line but the start­ing point of a new life and new endeav­our,” he said.
More than 1,800 cadres died in the battle against poverty, mostly because of acci­dents, ill­ness and exhaus­tion, state media said.
China’s poverty line is set at about US$2.30 a day – slightly above the World Bank’s low­est threshold of US$1.90 but below what is recom­men­ded for meas­ur­ing higher-income coun­tries.
Accord­ing to Zhu Lijia, a pro­fessor at the Chinese National Academy of Gov­ernance, yes­ter­day’s event high­lighted party lead­ers’ con­fid­ence in fur­ther bol­ster­ing the eco­nomy. “It’s a show of the party’s con­fid­ence and it marks a trans­ition from fight­ing poverty to revital­ising China’s rural eco­nomy,” Zhu said.
Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based polit­ical sci­ent­ist, said the gov­ern­ment had been using poverty alle­vi­ation to back up its nar­rat­ive about human rights devel­op­ments on the inter­na­tional stage, and to main­tain what it describes as social sta­bil­ity.
“But the cere­mony itself is to praise the cam­paign as Xi’s per­sonal polit­ical achieve­ment,” Wu said. He added that there would be sim­ilar events in the com­ing months, build­ing momentum for the party’s cen­ten­ary this year.


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A screenshot of the front page of the February 13, 2006, edition of the South China Morning Post. Photo: SCMP

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Emergency responders look for survivors inside a toppled bus carrying Hong Kong tourists on January 31, 2006. File photo: Handout

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Relatives of the Hong Kong tourists involved in the Egypt bus crash on their flight to Cairo on February 1, 2006. File photo: Robert Ng

Local authorities in southern Egypt conduct search operations on the ill-fated bus that killed 14 Hong Kong tourists. File photo: Handout

News

Five years ago, China announced it had eliminated 850 million people out of extreme poverty


Five years ago, China announced it had eliminated 850 million people out of extreme poverty.


Poverty in China

Xi Jinping’s poverty alleviation campaign

.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}On This Day | China’s Xi Jinping declares defeat of extreme poverty in 2021 – SCMP archive

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Five years ago, China announced it had eliminated 850 million people out of extreme poverty

Xi claims victory in eliminating extreme poverty

On This Day | China’s Xi Jinping declares defeat of extreme poverty in 2021 – SCMP archive

Five years ago, China announced it had eliminated 850 million people out of extreme poverty