BEIJING: All of China’s impoverished rural population has been lifted out of poverty under current standards, announced Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, after the last nine poverty-stricken counties in the southwestern province of Guizhou declared victory over poverty.
Following President Xi’s anti-poverty drive, the Chinese leadership set 2020 as the deadline to eradicate absolute poverty in the country, defined as living on an annual income below 4,000 Yuan, or roughly $611.40.
About 100 million poor people have shaken off poverty during eight years of sustained work, Xi said in his congratulatory letter to a global forum that shares poverty alleviation experience.
“The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government have always been devoted to the cause of letting the people lead a good life,” stressed Xi, who also serves as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
Earlier October, Xi assumed the historic responsibility of leading this fight, after he was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the first plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2012.
At that time, 98.99 million Chinese lived under the poverty line, earning a per capita annual income of less than 2,300 yuan, or about 1 U.S. dollar a day. The country entered what is known as the toughest phase of poverty reduction — when the ratio of the impoverished falls to under 10 percent of a country’s total population.
To meet the anti-poverty deadline, over 10 million people have to be lifted out of poverty every year. This equals about 1 million people every month or 20 people every minute.
About one month after taking the helm of the Party, Xi braved the winter cold to visit poor villagers in Hebei Province. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income, if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm through the winter. In November 2013, Xi went to Shibadong, a Miao ethnic minority village nestled in the mountains of central China’s Hunan Province. There, he put forward the concept of targeted poverty alleviation. Poverty relief should be “meticulous like doing embroidery,” rather than akin to “killing fleas with a hand-grenade,” Xi said.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN
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