Nation aims to be prosperous by 2020

Xi’s war on poverty is rooted in personal experience

BEIJING: As the president of the most populous nation on the planet, poverty has never been an issue Xi Jinping (pic) could take lightly.

In his four years leading China, Xi, 63, has visited more than 30 impoverished villages and townships, sharing his rich experience in poverty-eradication work and putting himself on the front lines of the war on poverty.

Looking back, it has been clear that Xi’s deep understanding of and focus on the poor has developed throughout his political career, as he rose from being a young man working at a remote village in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, to China’s top job.

He has often spoken of his firsthand experience living in poverty, and shared his ideas and insights on how to deal with it.

For example, he said that relocation was an important approach in fighting poverty and highlighted the role of ecological compensation, which would help improve the environment and boost incomes.

Last month during an inspection tour in northern Hebei Province, the president said fighting poverty was the fundamental task for building a moderately prosperous society.

China has set 2020 as the target year to finish building a moderately prosperous, or the Xiaokang society. A key goal of the targets is to eradicate poverty in China.

Xi has said that “no one should be left behind on the road towards Xiaokang.”

Xi’s first taste of poverty came in Liangjiahe Village in Yan’an, Shaanxi, about 48 years ago.

As a result of Chairman Mao Zedong’s campaign for urban youth to experience rural labour, 16-yearold Xi was sent to Liangjiahe in early 1969.

“Experiencing such an abrupt turn from Beijing to a place so destitute, I was struck deeply,” Xi said. In less than three years, Xi became a completely competent rural labourer.

“I found myself easily travelling several miles of mountain road while carrying a shoulder pole weighing over 50kg,” he said.

However, a day of hard work barely earned him enough for a pack of the cheapest cigarettes, which cost RM4 in the 1970s.

A year’s harvest could only sustain farmers for a couple of months, and they often found themselves running out of food as early as April or May. Xi and his contemporaries sent to work in the countryside were almost reduced to begging.

From 1988 to 1990, Xi worked as chief the Communist Party of China of Ningde Prefecture in southeastern Fujian Province. Ningde used to be one of 18 contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China.

“During my one-year-and-11month stay in Ningde, I went to almost all the townships, including three of the four townships without access to a paved road,” Xi said.

“That left me stunned. I promised I will work to eradicate that.”