Poverty Alleviation

[Randy W]

see also Eradicating Poverty in Three Years (CFL topic from 2017)

from the Global Times on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/videos/427006058403759/

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Among China's 832 registered poverty-stricken counties, Ziyun in SW
 China's #Guizhou is among the last nine to kick off poverty. Discover how
 this county deep in the mountains with the harshest of environments
 found its way to development. #povertyreduction
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202012/1210272.shtml?fbclid=IwAR0qlF_HqNUzAW4Ti941slaaTVkRe_MZCwB4h3Ohd7nTpe1KiJtsRdwAbDM

Last but not least: a county in mountains catches up by finding its way of development

Zhu Changfu, a villager at Dadiba village, prepares feed to his cattles. He makes 35,000 yuan only by selling cattles and pigs every year. His family has shaken off poverty in 2018. Photo: Li Hao/GT

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It is not a surprise that Dadiba is one of the least developed places in Guizhou. It was not connected to the power grid until December 2007, making it the last village that had electricity in Guizhou.

"When I first visited here 12 years ago, the 14-kilometer road from town entering the village took me almost two hours," Lu Kai, who works in the publicity department of Ziyun, told the Global Times. "The road was too bad in condition, and unsafe to drive."

Among Ziyun's 120,500 residents, 117,638 were registered poverty-stricken population, according to a county statement sent to the Global Times.

But how could villages like Dadiba shake off poverty?

China launched a campaign to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020. Dadiba received aid from regional governments, while Ziyun and Guizhou received supports from the central government.

A "combat team" for poverty relief staioned in Dadiba with members from county-level governmental departments. In Ziyun, more than 6,000, or 70 percent of officials and civil servants working in county governmental departments were dispatched to villages for similar work.

The changes have been quite apparent, especially in the past year.

The first step was to build a proper road. The project was finished 2014, when a new flat neat road, circled by the mountains, was completed to connect Dadiba and the nearby towns.

Then "combat team" introduced chayote, pubescens and Rosa roxburghii as economic products. Funding is given out to poor families to raise pigs and cows. 

Two doctors are also in the village clinic and consistently visit the families. The government installed water filters for each family, providing access to clean water.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Because of course he would

from Reuters

China's Xi declares 'complete victory' in campaign to stamp out rural poverty

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China credits Xi’s leadership with lifting nearly 100 million people from poverty over the past eight years, with state media framing the accomplishment as an early birthday gift for this year’s 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party.

On Wednesday, the People’s Daily, the party’s main newspaper, published a commentary filling more than two pages lauding the “historic leap” to vanquish poverty under Xi.

China defines extreme rural poverty as per capita income of less than 4,000 yuan ($620) each year, or about $1.52 a day. That compares with the World Bank’s global threshold of $1.90 a day.

In a “No. 1 policy document” released on Sunday, China vowed to stick with its poverty alleviation policies, while making some adjustments for a five-year transition towards what Beijing calls “rural revitalisation”.

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Meanwhile, certain hippie-types are trying to un-do progress

from the SCMP

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Chinese city dwellers opt for simpler lives in rural communes
China’s southeastern Fujian province, a rural commune called Another Commune

In China’s southeastern Fujian province, a rural commune called Another Community is supporting a growing number of city dwellers ready to trade urban life for a simpler lifestyle in the countryside. The commune reflects a trend that runs counter to the longer-term movement of rural Chinese jobseekers who head toward major cities.

 

from Reuters

City dwellers find simpler life in rural China commune

 

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China’s teeming megacities have drawn hundreds of millions of people from rural villages and small towns in search of jobs and wealth, but people like Yang are part of an emerging trend in the opposite direction.

A recent poll of people aged 18-35 by a state think-tank found 52% of those living in smaller towns and cities had moved there after spending on average three years in top-tier cities, citing the fast pace of life.

Known as AnotherCommunity, Yang’s new home is an hour’s drive outside of Fuzhou city in Fujian province, at a village called Guanzhong. It was set up by Tang Guanhua, 30, and his wife, Xing Zhen, 35, in late 2015.

After a year at AnotherCommunity, residents can vote to have a say in its affairs and use shared funds and resources. There are currently five permanent members.

It is now opening to the public for a four-month trial. Since mid-October, over 20 potential residents - from former computer programmers to online English teachers and freelance videographers - have signed up to join the community.

 

 

 . . . and the Sixth Tone

In China’s New Age Communes, Burned-Out Millennials Go Back to Nature
Fed up with the grind of urban life, young Chinese are starting over in the countryside, where they aim to build a new society without “privilege or hierarchy.”

Sick of the pressure of city life, a group of Chinese millennials has formed a commune on a barren hillside to try and live off the land. But can they survive without the material comforts they grew up with? By Shi Yangkun, Wang Xuandi, and Lu Yunwen/Sixth Tone

Edited February 25, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

on village mergers, or relocations

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
 

With Renewed Rural Focus, China Standardizes Village Mergers
China’s poverty alleviation push is being redirected into a new government agency focused on revitalizing the countryside.

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Beijing has forbidden local governments from forcing people to leave their villages and move to newly built settlements, a pervasive practice intended to boost the economic viability of depopulated rural areas but that has been met with opposition from villagers.

The policy, released Sunday by China’s central authorities, was part of an annual announcement on rural work called “Document No. 1,” usually published around the start of the year.

This year, though, the pronouncements carry extra weight, as they follow the establishment of a new central government agency, the National Administration of Rural Revitalization, announced in a Feb. 15 article by Qiushi, the official magazine of the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful Central Committee. The agency is headed by high-level officials who were previously with the office in charge of poverty alleviation.

 . . .

Combining depopulated villages into new towns has been a popular method for boosting rural economies suffering from a drain of workers moving to cities. But it has been marred by reports of villagers being moved against their will, as well as concerns that the large-scale application of this method could otherwise conflict with residents’ interests. For example, in the countryside administered by Dezhou, a city in eastern China’s Shandong province, more than 60% of all villages were demolished in the two years leading up to 2010.

Sunday’s document says village mergers will continue, but they will be standardized so they can only happen if the residents affected are on board.

 . . .

Restoring the vigor of China’s countryside has been a government goal for years, but now it will receive more resources, local officials told Sixth Tone. “We’re restructuring,” said Li Zhenxue, a poverty alleviation official in Lancang Lahu Autonomous County, a formerly impoverished area in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. “The provincial government requires that our office be changed to ‘rural revitalization office’ by the end of March. Right now, we are working on the plans and focusing on wrapping up our poverty alleviation efforts.”

 

 

[Randy W]

A close up look at the "poverty alleviation" effort in "China's poorest village". There's a lot of similar programming on CGTN these days.

A quote from the video

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I don't think that anyone is under the illusion that 2020 is the endgame for poverty alleviation in China. If anything, right now, they're planting the seeds of change with a little bit of help in terms of infrastructure. And these seeds are going to make the real change in the years to come.

Job Challenge: Revisiting Kuijiu, a year on

By Nadim Diab

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What frustrated him was the reluctance of the new homeowners to deal with the smaller issues on their own, or at least actively ask for help from Rui or his team instead of sitting tight. They had been holding the hands of villagers for years now, and it was soon time to let go. Rui needed to know that locals will be able to pick up where the team had left after they left, but seeing many still lacked initiative put him in a bad mood.

"What will happen when we're gone?" he said in a defeated tone. My tongue was tied, and I couldn't help but wonder just how long he'd been choking on this fear before he finally spat it out.

 

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Think of it as "modernization", rather than "poverty alleviation" - similar to programs in the 30's, 40's, and 50's in the US such as the TVA, the WPA, and the War on Poverty (links to Life Magazine article "War on Poverty: Portraits From an Appalachian Battleground, 1964").

But how successful was it?

from the WSJ

Xi Jinping’s Eager-to-Please Bureaucrats Snarl His China Plans
Beijing launches campaign against obsequious behavior by requiring party cadres to study leader’s remarks on ‘formalism and bureaucratism’

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Party observers say the drive for centralization in a sprawling nation too often fosters bureaucratic inertia, duplicity and other unproductive practices that are aimed at satisfying Beijing and protecting careers but threaten to undermine Mr. Xi’s goals.

Indeed, some local officials have become so focused on pleasing Mr. Xi and fulfilling party mandates that they can neglect their basic duties as public servants, sometimes with dire results.

In the eastern city of Fuyang, local officials were disciplined in 2019 for ordering homes in some rural villages to be painted white so that they would look nicer to party bosses—spending the equivalent of $1.2 million—without addressing deficient roads and drainage systems. Party inspectors found that local officials started the “whitewashing” as a way to deliver quick results after higher-ups demanded that residents’ homes be fixed up within three months. Even that project was haphazard, with many houses only partially painted, according to a state television documentary.

Provincial authorities denounced the episode as a vanity project and a highly damaging act of “formalism”—the official epithet for box-ticking and “CYA” behavior that prioritizes form over substance—and replaced Fuyang’s top official.

 . . .

The dangers of box-ticking have worried Communist governments since the days of Stalin and Mao. Historians say Mao was so troubled by the phenomenon that he repeatedly launched campaigns to shake up what he saw as an ossifying and increasingly self-serving party bureaucracy. Today, under Mr. Xi, the problem appears to have returned with a vengeance.  
“As Xi controls more strictly from above, the people below face far too many orders and rules and choose to do the safest thing,” said Ryan Manuel, managing director of Hong Kong-based research firm Official China, which analyzes Communist Party governance.  
Mr. Xi has repeatedly spurred efforts to stamp out excessive bureaucracy, calling it a “major enemy” of the party and the people. In January, he ordered the Communist Party’s top disciplinary commission to spare no effort in curbing such behavior and demanded “excellent results” befitting the party’s centenary in July, according to state media.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from Xinhua, if you want to study up

China issues white paper on poverty alleviation

 

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The white paper was issued to record the course of the Chinese people's great fight in eliminating extreme poverty, introduce China's approach, and share its experience and actions in poverty alleviation.

Besides the preface and conclusion, the white paper consists of five parts: "The Solemn Commitment of the CPC," "Final Victory in the Fight against Extreme Poverty," "The Strategy of Targeted Poverty Alleviation," "Exploring a New Path of Poverty Alleviation" and "A Global Community of Shared Future Free from Poverty."

 

 

 . . . and the BBC take

Has China lifted 100 million people out of poverty?

[Randy W]

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3672217736236922&id=553929144732479

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By the end of 2020, China’s impoverished areas had gained 1.1 million km of reconstructed highways and 35,000 km of new railways; all the villages, townships and towns in poverty-stricken areas with the right conditions were accessible by paved road and provided with bus and mail routes, which facilitated more economic development, according to a white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office on Tuesday.   Photo by Xu Xun  #povertyalleviation

[Randy W]

Some potential speed bumps remain

Villages across China have tried to replicate a few early success stories and develop themselves into rural tourism spots. But only a few have realized a return on their investment.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2991424577843049/

Is China’s Rural Tourism Push Sustainable?
After two decades of investment in infrastructure and industry, the country has declared victory against rural poverty, but revitalizing rural areas might require a different strategy.
 

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China launched several “rural revitalization” campaigns over the past decade to help rejuvenate its economically stagnant rural areas. Deeming traditional, small-scale agriculture inadequate for the demands of modern development, local officials nationwide partnered with outside enterprises and capital to reshape the economies of entire villages, often emphasizing a single, signature industry such as tourism.
Y Village — I am not identifying the place to protect the identity of my research participants — is an ordinary village in central China. In the mid-2010s, Y Village was selected as a pilot site for a major rural revitalization campaign, after which it received almost 60 million yuan (now $9.3 million) in funding from various government levels. Local officials chose to concentrate these resources on developing rural tourism resources, partnering with an outside enterprise to develop the village into an agritourism site and incentivizing farmers to invest in “agritainment” venues such as restaurants and the bed and breakfast-esque establishments known as nongjiale.
As part of this strategy, Y Village leased a large portion of village land to its private sector partner for 10 years and spent more than 30 million yuan on new facilities for tourists like a scenic road and a visitor center.
Over the next several years, however, the tourism project hemorrhaged money. Y Village hasn’t attracted many tourists, and those who have visited tended to be individual day-trippers from surrounding areas who rarely ate or stayed in the village. The businesses the government had pushed locals to set up struggled to stay afloat, and some farmers were forced to close up shop and either return to farming or else look for work in the city.
In addition to leasing farmland to outside companies long term, Y Village’s resources are increasingly skewed toward tourism projects. A river running through the village was selected to be the centerpiece of the local tourism industry, so now the county government operates the reservoir upstream with water rides and other recreational activities in mind. As less water is released, farmland irrigation has been seriously affected.

Y Village epitomizes some of the challenges China faces as it attempts to revitalize rural areas. Local governments have prioritized large-scale land management and developing large agricultural or industrial enterprises with the aim of concentrating and coordinating village resources to develop certain industries and achieve economies of scale. The potential payoff is immense: Once an industry reaches a certain size, it becomes easier for officials to lobby for more resources and investment from higher levels of government.
But as this strategy has been replicated across the country, villages run the risk of overlooking unique local conditions and needs.

 

 

[Randy W]

Over Lancang River, in Foshan Village of Deqin County in Yunnan Province, it is still possible to see a thick rope and steel chains hanging over the river. In the past, they were used as suspension cable to cross the river and carry material and animals from one river bank to the other. Some old villagers who have spent their entire life along the river share their story about this ancient system that was built long before they were born.
Since the population was very poor when this system was put in place, they couldn’t afford a steel chain and therefore used a big rope made of bamboo attached to a tree on each side of the river. Although crossing a wide and wild river that way sounds really scary these days, when the locals used it before the physical bridge was built, they were not scared at all. It was just a part of their everyday life. Some used a piece of wood hanging on the rope to cross the river while some used a leather belt. Larger belts were used to transport humans and mules. Steel chains were installed later to replace the bamboo rope for safety sake.
People from other places used to come over to the village to worship the mountain and follow the Ancient Tea Horse Road, therefore they needed to use the suspension cable. The villagers stayed the whole day to wait for them, charge them and make quite a lot of money. The recall of the past still makes them laugh. As far as they remember, it was a good business indeed!
The construction of the Pudu Bridge was a real game changer, making all the transportation much easier. When using the zip line, they had to cower to go through the river. Now they can easily walk through and move as they please. This change brought a lot of convenience in their life. It is now much easier to go on the other side of the river for harvesting crops and carrying the crops from one side to the other. The thought of not having to bear anymore the hardship of the past brings big smiles of relief on their face.
The improvement of livelihood also enables almost all villagers to own a car of their own and use all the roads built over the last decades conveniently to access their lands at ease. While they had to rely mostly on manpower in the past, the economic development and the arrival of machines have brought massive changes to their life. The villagers say they are happy and feel grateful for all the changes they have witnessed and experienced over the years, which have resulted in much less hardship and a much more comfortable life. by Cecile Zehnacker

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/3981065818685444

[Randy W]

After having successfully achieved its goals in terms of poverty alleviation within the national deadline of 2020, the village of Longgu, Chayu county, #Tibet Autonomous Region has entered a new phase in China’s initiative of rural revitalization. Launched in the country in 2018, rural revitalization’s goal is to improve rural people’s livelihood and economic conditions through a comprehensive system that includes an improved living environment, support for starting and growing small businesses as well as many other aspects.
In Longgu Village, the improvement of the living environment goes through the separation of humans and livestock for better hygiene. The livestock have now a specific area in the village with a road to easily reach that area. They are kept there during the winter season, and from May to October, the animals are transferred to centralized pasture area. There is also garbage management and new business projects such as raising local Tibetan chickens and livestock in order to improve villagers’ living standards and fruit production which are sold all over the county thanks to the improvement of the roads.
Suonam Wangmu tells us about rural revitalization projects taking place in her hometown of Longgu Village.
Suonam, 29 years old, has always been an outstanding student and went away from the village to study her junior high school in a boarding school. She missed her family so much that she decided she would come back to hometown after college graduation. After graduating from high school, she moved to Beijing and studied at the Minzu University of China. To her, going to university in Beijing was not for finding a better job or applying for a civil servant job,  she just believes that education is a game-changer and allows her to look at things in a different way.
Rural revitalization focus on five different topics: culture, environment, industry, organization and talent. An important part of her job now consists in translating. Since a lot of staff come from other parts of Tibet, they can speak Tibetan but not the dialect spoken by the locals. Being a local and speaking fluent Tibetan and Mandarin, it is a job she can easily do and enjoys, making her happy when helping others.
She specifically takes charge of two business projects: One is growing a specific type of mushrooms called morel which is very suitable to the local climate and environment, and the other is raising Tibetan black fragment pigs, which is a traditional activity in the village. The pig breeding already diversified with other breeds, driven by the market needs.
When it comes to professional training, she holds a class every Thursday in Tibetan and Mandarin languages, with a will to improve the education level in the village. Additionally, most villages now need special staff for rural revitalization including science and technology talents, as well as doctors and other specific professionals. They hope they can attract young graduates to come to work in the village.
In the past, locals worried about their food, house, clothes, education and health. Thanks to the recent upturns, villagers already witnessed important improvement in all the respects. Being a special staff for rural revitalization, Suonam hopes that in the future the program will bring further benefits to the village and further better their life on the basis of their already increased income. She also wish she can learn from others to improve herself.
by Cecile Zehnacker

from China Pictorial ("China state-controlled media ") on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/3981075308684495

[Randy W]

“Moderate prosperity in China has been achieved through the unremitting efforts of  generations. In this process, every individual has chased their dreams, striven to make the best of themselves, and made their own contribution to the country, ” said a white paper on China’s journey from poverty to prosperity.

from China Pictorial on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/4187076824751008