40 Years of China's War on Poverty

324 Pages·3.651 MB·English

by  Xinkai Zhu, Chao Peng

40 Years of China’s
War on Poverty
Xinkai Zhu · Chao Peng
40 Years of China’s War on Poverty
·
Xinkai Zhu Chao Peng
40 Years of China’s
War on Poverty
Xinkai Zhu Chao Peng
Renmin University Research Center for the Rural
Beijing, China Economy
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Affairs
Beijing, China
Translated by
Yu Muhong
Hangzhou, China
This book is funded by B&R program.
ISBN 978-981-19-3003-4 ISBN 978-981-19-3004-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3004-1
Jointly published with China Renmin University Press
The print edition is not for sale in China Mainland. Customers from China Mainland
please order the print book from: China Renmin University Press.
ISBN of the China Mainland edition: 978-7-300-25809-6
Translation from the Chinese language edition: “中国反贫困: 人类历史的伟大壮举” by
Xinkai Zhu and Chao Peng, © 朱信凯 (Zhu Xinkai); 彭超 (Peng Chao) 2018. Published
by China Renmin University Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Foreword
From the Millennium Development Goals to the 2030 Agenda for
SustainableDevelopment,theUnitedNationshasprioritizedpovertyerad-
ication. In June 2017, at the 35th session of the UN Human Rights
Council held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Representative of China took
the floor and, together with more than 140 countries around the world,
issued a solemn and sacred joint statement on concerted efforts to erad-
icate poverty. This is a milestone set up by the Chinese people in the
world’s anti-poverty history. Helen Clark, former head of the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said: “China has lifted the
poorest people out of poverty on a great scale that has caught the atten-
tion of the world and at a speed that is unparalleled.” In just only 40
years, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, accounting for
three quarters of the total global population. Halving the proportion
of people living in poverty is one of the MILLENNIUM Develop-
ment Goals of the United Nations, which China has achieved ahead of
schedule and is the first country to achieve this goal. The fifth Plenary
Session of the 18th CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of
China (CPC) proposed that by 2020, which is the time to complete
the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, all rural
poor people should be lifted out of poverty and all poor counties should
v
vi FOREWORD
“remove their hat.” This is not only the responsibility of the Chinese
Communists, their solemn commitment to the Chinese people, but also
the Chinese flag they have set up for the world anti-poverty cause.
GeneralSecretaryXiJinpingpointedoutthatthecurrentpovertyalle-
viation and development work has entered the “a tough nut to crack”
and “desperately crucial” sprint period. In this context, the actual work
of poverty alleviation and related research on poverty alleviation must
conform to the requirements of the Times and have the courage to try
and innovate. A research team led by Professor Zhu Xinkai of Renmin
University of China has created an innovative interpretation of China’s
40-year anti-poverty journey, based on China’s experience and extensive
desk studies and field investigations. After studying the manuscript, my
general impression is that Professor Xin Kai’s profound academic foun-
dation and long-term follow-up research on the problems of Chinese
farmers must be the icing on the cake in anti-poverty research. Over
the past 40 years, the Chinese people have lifted themselves out of
poverty on a large scale. We have also created successful experience in
lifting contiguous areas, counties and villages in deep poverty out of
poverty, making China’s contribution to the world’s anti-poverty cause
and setting an example for China. This book is a comprehensive and
systematic summary of this great historical process. Especially since the
18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Marxist
anti-povertytheoryhasbeencontinuouslyenrichedandperfectedandput
into practice in China. This book is an in-depth reflection and study of
this great new historical practice. On this basis, the book also selected
regional balance, industrial development, ecological poverty alleviation,
education poverty alleviation and other fields for special case analysis. In
short,thisbookisnotonlyasystematicsummaryofMarxistanti-poverty
theory,butalsoacomprehensivereviewofChina’sdevelopmentpathand
experience.
Xin Kai is a young scholar with whom I am familiar. His team is also
an innovative team of “Changjiang Scholars” who have been engaged in
agricultural and rural development research for a long time. Adhering to
thebasicprinciplesofMarxism,basedonChina’sdevelopmentexperience
anddialecticallydrawingoninternationalcutting-edgeresearchmethods,
the team has observed, studied and explored China’s development path,
FOREWORD vii
which deserves encouragement and advocacy. I highly recommend this
book to my colleagues in the theoretical and policy circles.
That’s the reason why I am quite willing to create the foreword.
Beijing, China Duan Yingbi
September 2017 Chairman of the China Foundation
for Poverty Alleviation,
Former Director of the Central
Agricultural and Industrial Office
Preface
To get rid of poverty has been a dream of the Chinese people for thou-
sands of years. It is a solemn promise of the Communist Party of China
to hundreds of millions of Chinese people. It is also a goal of China’s
reform and development.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Chinese
Communists have endured hardships and led the people of all ethnic
groups in starting their own businesses. Since the start of reform and
openingup,ChineseCommunistshaveledhundredsofmillionsofpeople
inboldexplorationandblazedapathofsocialismwithChinesecharacter-
istics.Sincethe18thCPCNationalCongress,ChineseCommunistshave
stoodatanewhistoricalstartingpoint,comprehensivelydeepenedreform
and worked hard to complete the building of a moderately prosperous
society in all respects. Today, the reform and opening up has entered
the 40th year. In the past 40 years, China has undergone tremendous
changes. China’s economic development has created a world miracle and
setanexampleforthethirdworldcountriestoshakeoffpovertyandback-
wardness.Inthepast40years,China’sreformhasbeen“fromtheoutside
to the inside” and “from shallow to deep,” from “reform and opening
up” to “comprehensively deepening reform,” constantly breaking the
barriers of ideology, and scientifically answering the question of “how
to build socialism” with the great achievements of development. Over
the past four decades, the people’s living standard has gradually shifted
from “basic food and clothing” to “moderately prosperous life,” and the
ix
x PREFACE
number of people living in poverty in rural areas has decreased signifi-
cantly.Onthewayoutofpoverty,westrivetoleavenoonenationalityor
people behind. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of
China(CPC),oncequotedalinefromthebookofShuoyuan·ZhengLi
to describe the country’s feelings for lifting itself out of poverty: “A man
who is good at serving his country meets his people like a father’s son or
a brother’s brother. When he hears their hunger and cold, he feels sorry
for them; when he sees their sufferings, he feels much sad.”
Indeed, since the reform and opening up, the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China has attached great importance to
the hunger, cold and travail of the rural poor. It has always integrated
poverty alleviation and building a well-off society, and carried out anti-
povertypracticeswithdifferentwaysindifferentdevelopmentstages,thus
constructing the current poverty alleviation and development system.
Before 1978, the number of people living in poverty in China was
about250million.Themainreasonforthelargenumberofpeopleliving
inpovertyduringthisperiodwasthateconomicsystemfactorslimitedthe
development of rural productivity. Later, with the reform of rural basic
operation system and commodity circulation system, rural productivity
was liberated, agricultural output and farmers’ income increased rapidly,
and the ruralpoor population was greatly reduced. However, as the poor
populationtendstoclusterinthe“old,young,borderandpoor”areas,it
is difficult to effectively lift the rural poor out of poverty by economic
growth alone, and the poverty alleviation and development work has
encounterednewcontradictionsandbottlenecks.Since1986,theChinese
governmenthascarriedoutaseriesoflarge-scale,well-plannedandorga-
nized poverty alleviation and development activities in rural areas. The
mechanism of “targeting counties at the county level” has been estab-
lished, and 331 poverty-stricken counties have been identified as key
areas of state support, thus forming the prototype of the development-
oriented poverty alleviation strategy with Chinese characteristics. After
Deng Xiaoping’s southern talk in 1992, China’s economy has entered
into the phase of rapid growth, poverty reduction effect of economic
growth becomes the main driving force of poverty alleviation and devel-
opment work in this stage, the rapid development of the second and the
third industry to absorb the rural surplus labor force, the farmers’ salary
income increase leads to the rise of income level of rural residents, which
bringssomefarmersoutofpoverty.However,therapideconomicgrowth
PREFACE xi
isboundtobringabouttheproblemofunbalancedregionaldevelopment
and make the poor population further gather in the backward areas.
In response to this contradiction, in 1994, China began to implement
“the Seven Year National Poverty Alleviation Plan (1994-2000)”, which
providesadevelopmentstrategyofgivingprioritytotheproblemoffood
and clothing for the poverty-stricken population in economically under-
developed areas: basically solving the problem of food and clothing for
80 million rural people in seven years. Under the new standards, the
number of poor counties in China has increased to 592. Six years after
theinceptionoftheSevenYearPovertyAlleviationProgram,thenumber
of people living in absolute poverty has dropped to 32 million. Although
remarkable achievements have been made, new contradictions have been
exposed: poor counties fail to cover all the poor people, and a large
number of poor people are distributed in counties not supported by the
state.Thispartofpoorpeoplecannotenjoythesupportofpovertyallevia-
tionresourcesfromthestate,andthepovertyalleviationanddevelopment
work progresses slowly.
In the face of these new problems, the state has adopted the “Pro-
gram for Poverty Alleviation and Development in China’s Rural Areas
(2001-2010),” which has relaxed restrictions on the use of poverty alle-
viation funds and allowed them to be invested in poverty-stricken people
incountiesotherthanthekeyareassupportedbythestate.Thetargeting
method for poverty alleviation has been adjusted from “targeting at
the county level” to “targeting at the village level.” In 2011, the state
issued “the Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in China’s
Rural Areas (2011-2020),” identifying 11 contiguous poverty-stricken
areas, like Tibet, Tibetan areas in four provinces, and the three prefec-
tures in southern Xinjiang as the main battlefields for poverty alleviation.
During this period, the poverty alleviation and development strategy was
mainly adjusted in two aspects: firstly, focusing on regional development
differences, focusing on solving the poverty problem in the economi-
callyunderdevelopedareasofNorthwestandSouthwestChinawherethe
poverty-stricken population is relatively concentrated, shifting from “tar-
geting at the county level” to “targeting at the village level,” and further
ensuring the implementation of poverty alleviation measures; secondly,
adhere to development-oriented poverty alleviation as the main means,
emphasizing the transformation from “blood transfusion” to “blood
production” poverty alleviation.