Xi claims end to poverty in China

`MIRACLE' IN CHINA

China's president said his country had achieved the “human miracle” of eliminating extreme poverty in the world's most populous nation, during a ceremony to put his personal stamp on the victory.

Xi Jinping delivered an hour-long speech on the milestone, in what was seen as an attempt to claim credit and consolidate power before his second term ends.

He claimed 10 million people had been lifted out of poverty each year of his eight in power at a cost of almost $311 billion.

The ceremony highlighted his personal role, including work earlier in his career reducing poverty in one town.

“I insisted on looking at real poverty, understanding the real efforts to reduce poverty, helping those who are in real poverty and achieving real poverty alleviation,” he said on state television.

Prof. Carl Minzner, of Fordham Law School, who specializes in Chinese law and governance, said the ceremony and propaganda were “aimed at painting Xi Jinping as the victorious commander leading China to success in its millennia-long battle against poverty and allowing him to claim personal credit for this accomplishment.”

“This will have dramatic ramifications in terms of Xi's personal power, the extent to which a cult of personality surrounding Xi will be tacitly or directly encouraged,” he said.

Xi has amassed more personal power than any leader since communist China's founder, Mao Zedong, and the poverty milestone has given him a fresh chance to assert his historical importance.

China has been awash with propaganda recently, declaring that poverty has been eradicated in the nation of 1.4 billion people. The government has managed to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty since it turned to market reforms in the 1970s and many live lifestyles that earlier generations could not have imagined.

Yet claims of an end to poverty have been met with international skepticism as millions still struggle to make ends meet. Some policy experts have said the country's definition of poverty hid how many people were still struggling.

China defines extreme rural poverty as annual per capita income of 4,000 yuan. The World Bank's global threshold is $1.90 a day but 4,000 yuan works out at roughly $1.70 a day.

Experts, however, have long suggested that the world's second-largest economy should use a more relative poverty line to gauge its population's economic health.

The World Bank estimates about 373 million Chinese live on less than $5.50 a day.