Poverty Alleviation Miracle Of China Nasim Mahmmud

Part-2
Those lifted out of poverty are free from worries over food and clothing and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing, as well as clean drinking water. Furthermore, by the end of 2020, China has built more than 300,000 industrial bases, created 12000 local agro products brands, 14,400 leading enterprises above the city level, and 719,000 rural cooperatives operated by farmers with a team of 289,800 technicians and a fund of over RMB 20 billion China has set up 1290 innovative platforms and business start-ups. And over 9.6 million people from inhospitable areas have shaken off poverty through relocation. The government channelled 1.6 trillion Yuan ($251 billion) into this endeavour. It is worth mentioning here that China’s corporate sector also invested over 1 trillion Yuan ($157 billion) in poverty-stricken areas. The above figures are a vivid manifestation in explaining the Chinese government’s “people-centered” governance. Despite the achievement in poverty alleviation, China remains the biggest developing country globally. It still faces acute problems caused by unbalanced and inadequate development.
Globally, there has been marked progress on reducing poverty over the past decades but the Chinese experience remains unparalleled. Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million unprivileged rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty and in this period, China has invested 1.6 trillion Yuan ($ 246 billion) for combating poverty. All the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list. According to the World Bank’s report, more than 700 million Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty over the past 40 years, contributing to over 70% of global poverty reduction. China considers extreme rural poor are those with annual per capita income of less than $620, or about $ 1.69 a day at current exchange rates, which compared closely with the World Bank’s minimum standard of $ 1.90 a day.
President Xi Jinping has guided China’s battle against poverty. His important discourses on poverty reduction have laid the ideological and theoretical foundations for Chinese poverty alleviation. It comprises the CPC’s goals and the spirit of the Chinese nation, and reflects patriotism, socialist ideas and Chinese values. In the past eight years, President Xi Jinping has presided over the Central Poverty Alleviation Work Symposium seven times and conducted more than 50 studies on poverty alleviation. He travelled through 14 contiguous poor areas and talked face-to-face with impoverished rural residents about their family lives and incomes. Despite China’s remarkable success in the anti-poverty battle, President Xi Jinping also stressed that shaking off poverty is not the finish line, but the starting point of a new life and new endeavour.
Poverty alleviation is a great cause for the prosperity and happiness of the people. Poverty relief work has been led by the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC with its 93 million members. Party chiefs at all levels were required to assume the primary responsibility for achieving the campaigns of these ambitious targets. More than, 3 million well-educated civil servants and bureaucrats were sent from cities and towns to villages to fight poverty on the front lines. They exchanged hard work sacrifice for the happiness of the people. Over 1800 party members and, officials have lost their lives in the case of poverty alleviation. China’s success in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control and ending extreme poverty was based on three principles- CPC leadership, General Secretary Xi Jinping’s commitment, and CPC mobilization.
It is believed that China’s long practice of poverty alleviation and, the experience accumulated can be a classic example for developing countries especially for the South Asian countries. Though the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic added a new dimension to the poverty challenges globally, China’s 40-year experience with poverty reduction remains relevant for developing countries including Bangladesh. China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka all have great development potential. They have much to offer each other and contribute to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Their foreign ministers agreed at a recent virtual meeting to create a China-South Asia Poverty Reduction and Development Centre to share best practices. China strongly considers South Asian countries not only its good neighbours but also its trusted friends for years and reiterated its commitment to provide all necessary cooperation for the economic and social development of these countries.

The Writer is Executive Director at Centre for East Asia (Foundation), Bangladesh.
(Concluded)