Wen Tiejun—Lessons from Poverty Alleviation
The issue of poverty has always been a global challenge. Over the more than 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, reducing poverty has been given high priority, with a series of major strategies launched despite the unfavorable conditions of a large rural population base and a broad poverty scope, organizing and planning a comprehensive push for poverty alleviation. The relationship between poverty reduction and national economic development can be roughly divided into five stages.
The First Stage (1950s)—Eliminating the Majority of "Absolute Poverty"
After the completion of land reform in 1952, over 300 million landless and smallholder farmers received more than 700 million mu (about 46.7 million hectares) of land and means of production, benefiting approximately 70% of the rural population at that time. Compared to 1949, the total grain output increased from 113.18 million tons to 163.92 million tons in 1952.
Throughout the 1950s, industrialization led to a large number of urban employment opportunities, absorbing 20 million rural young and middle-aged laborers to support the nation's industrial construction in cities. By 1952, the output value of agriculture and industry reached 81 billion yuan, with the agricultural output value accounting for 48.39 billion yuan, an increase of 48.4% compared to 1949. The net per capita monetary income of farmers reached 127.9 yuan, an 80% increase from 1949.
The Second Stage (1960s-1970s)—Acceleration of National Industrialization Process
In 1960, with the cessation of Soviet aid, China was forced to independently sustain its military heavy industry, which could not generate market benefits. Coupled with widespread natural disasters from 1959 to 1961, grain production decreased yearly, and rural per capita grain consumption dropped from 409 jin (approximately 204.5 kilograms) in 1957 to 312 jin (approximately 156 kilograms) in 1960. By 1963, the domestic economy gradually recovered, and adjusting the industrial structure became a key content of the "Third Five-Year Plan." On one hand, "counter-cyclical" tightening policies were adopted along with the strengthening of the "dual structure" of urban and rural areas. On the other hand, there was significant investments in large-scale basic construction and agricultural construction essential for national industrialization. Between 1949 and 1982, the vast majority of the country's 42,000 kilometers of river dikes were renovated and reinforced. Nationwide, there were 107 large-scale water conservancy projects planned to benefit thousands of acres each, and 2.08 million mass agricultural water conservancy constructions were carried out, expanding the irrigated area by more than 32.4 million acres and increasing the national cultivated land area from 1.468 billion acres to 1.619 billion acres.
The Third Stage (1980s)—Widespread Poverty Alleviation Revisited
The Household Responsibility System became the internal driving force for farmers' poverty alleviation and wealth accumulation. Between 1981 and 1985, the national grain output continued to grow, exceeding 400 million tons by 1984. Starting in 1982, for five consecutive years, Central Document No. 1 promoted major reforms in rural areas, spurring the revival of the national economy in 1982 and achieving high growth in 1983. Between 1981 and 1985, the annual average wage income of urban workers grew by 4.7% per year, while the annual per capita income of rural residents increased by 14% per year. The per capita disposable income of rural households continued to grow, with the actual growth rate far exceeding that of urban households, especially in 1981, 1982, and 1984, when the growth rate of per capita disposable income exceeded 20%.
Targeting impoverished areas in the remote, border, and minority regions, the central government initiated the Three-West Poverty Alleviation Development Program in 1982, forming China's poverty alleviation regional development and relocation poverty alleviation model. Subsequently, in 1986, the State Council established the Leading Group on Poverty Alleviation and Economic Development, and provincial, municipal, and county-level poverty alleviation leadership institutions were established from top to bottom. This formally established specialized poverty alleviation agencies, set the policy for development-oriented poverty alleviation, and entered an era of organized, planned, and standardized large-scale national development-oriented poverty alleviation, including the establishment of special poverty alleviation funds in the fiscal budget.
The Fourth Stage (1990s)—Cultivating New Opportunities in Changing Circumstances
In the summer of 1993, the central government once again decided to implement macroeconomic control, and in 1994, it introduced fiscal reform, tax-sharing reform, and state-owned enterprise reform to address the inflation and deficit crisis to some extent. In the early 1990s, the overall outflow of rural labor, capital, and land returns caused some farmers to lose non-agricultural income, and the market competitiveness of scattered small-scale farmers weakened. In response, in 1994, China proposed the "National 8-7 Poverty Alleviation Program (1994-2000)", aiming to fundamentally solve the food and clothing problems of 80 million rural poor people nationwide by concentrating human, material, and financial resources and mobilizing forces from all sectors of society within about seven years (from 1994 to 2000). The program focused on targeted poverty alleviation for 592 impoverished counties designated for national key support, located in the central and western mountainous areas, stone mountain areas, desert areas, cold mountain areas, Loess Plateau areas, areas with a high incidence of endemic diseases, and reservoir areas. It continued to adhere to the development-oriented poverty alleviation policy of the 1980s, mainly providing preferential policies in terms of credit, fiscal and taxation, and economic development. During this period, the central fiscal budget allocated a total of approximately 53.181 billion yuan for poverty alleviation funds, with an average annual growth of 9.81%.
The Fifth Stage (Since the 21st Century)
—Targeted Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalization
To achieve a re-balancing between urban and rural areas, in 2002 the central government prioritized issues related to "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" and clarified the strategy of integrated urban-rural development that same year; in 2005, during the Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party, while establishing the major historical task of building a new socialist countryside alongside constructing a resource-conserving, environmentally friendly society, it was specified that the development of county economies should rely mainly on urbanization and small and medium enterprises; in 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established ecological civilization as a new development strategy; in 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee identified breaking through the dual structure as a main content of urban-rural integration; in 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the rural revitalization strategy... These strategies all require massive investments in rural infrastructure and social and cultural sectors, with recent years seeing the highest proportion of "agriculture, rural areas, and farmers" expenditures in fiscal spending.
To achieve a re-balancing of wealth disparity, in 2001 the state formulated the "Outline for Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development in China (2001-2010)," which aimed to consolidate poverty alleviation achievements, enhance development capabilities, and narrow development gaps, with key support focused on the impoverished population in central and western ethnic minority areas, revolutionary base areas, border areas, and particularly distressed areas; in 2013, President Xi Jinping of the Communist Party of China (CPC) proposed targeted poverty alleviation; in 2014, the central government conducted top-level design for the targeted poverty alleviation work model; in 2015, the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Winning the Battle Against Poverty" was issued, proposing a strategic goal of eliminating poverty for over 70 million impoverished people by 2020; in 2017, the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stated that the whole Party, the whole country, and the whole society should be mobilized to insist on targeted poverty alleviation and eradication, ensuring that by 2020, rural impoverished people under the current standard are lifted out of poverty, all poor counties are removed from the poverty list, solving regional poverty comprehensively, and winning the battle against poverty.
Over the 20 years since the 21st century, the central government, with the "visible hand," has re-allocated scarce resources such as capital and technology to impoverished areas, while also mobilizing various social resources to participate in the poverty alleviation campaign. Since 2001, the central fiscal budget has cumulatively allocated approximately 700 billion yuan in poverty alleviation special funds.