Q: Poverty is a common problem that haunts the whole
world. However, China has done an impressive job in poverty
alleviation. What exactly does China do to help relieve poverty?
How many poor people are there still in China? What will the
government do to help them escape poverty?
A: There are historical reasons for the poverty of China's rural
areas. The situation is crucial in some parts given the extent of
the poverty, and consequently, the effort combating poverty will be
long-term. China's poverty alleviation efforts over the past two
decades have been motivated by system innovation, featuring several
large-scale, long-term and effective aid-the-poor projects. China's
unique way of poverty relief, which is based on its national
conditions, has been highly spoken of by the international
community. Statistics are most convincing. For example, 20 years
ago, the population of poor in China stood at 250 million, while by
2004, the number had plummeted to 26.1 million.
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China's reform, originating in the countryside in 1978, has given
great impetus to the development of the rural economy, remarkably
improving the living standard in rural areas and leading to a sharp
decline in the number of poor people. But due to the complexity of
historical, natural, economical and social factors, some areas are
still dragging their feet in development and the poverty situation
remains serious. In 1986, large-scale poverty alleviation projects
were launched nationwide and by the end of 1992, the number of poor
had dropped to 80 million from 250 million in 1978. The remaining
poor people were mostly living in areas with harsh natural
conditions, which made it a tougher task to ensure them adequate
food and shelter. Decisive and determined, the Chinese Government
launched another comprehensive poverty alleviation campaign in
1994, using all of the country's resources and finances, and with
the help of people from every walk of society. This time, the
campaign lasted seven years. By the end of 2000, China had by and
large fulfilled its goal of being able to feed and shelter all the
people, with the poverty-stricken population dropping to 30
million. In 2004, the number decreased to 26.1 million.
The remaining rural poor in China consists of two groups of
people—the disabled, who have no laboring ability, and those who
live areas with extremely difficult production and living
conditions and scarce resources.
China's major tasks for poverty alleviation in the early 21st
century include: helping the poor people who still live below the
subsistence level have access to adequate food and clothing at an
early date; helping those who have solved survival problems further
improve their basic living and production conditions, to enhance
their life quality and overall capability; and stepping up
infrastructure construction in poor villages, improving the
eco-system and gradually bring the poor areas out of economic,
social and cultural backwardness, thus creating favorable
conditions for the people's well-off life.
Enabling poor people to benefit from social progress and
achievement of reform and opening up is key to building a
harmonious society. China pledged at the Global Conference on
Scaling Up Poverty Reduction, held in 2004, that it will basically
solve the problem of inadequate food, clothing and shelter of
remaining 26.1 million poor population in China by the year 2010,
enabling them to ultimately escape poverty and set off for a
better-off life.