China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A literal triumph
Policies that aim to achieve a comfortable life for Chinese people draw inspiration from ancient books, Yang Feiyue reports.
Editor’s note: China’s ancient wisdom informs its contemporary leadership. In this series, China Daily explores how age-old principles and philosophies continue to steer the nation’s governance.
Tan Zhiwei is now living a self-sustaining pastoral life that he couldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago. He had to leave his home in the village of Bamou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and struggled to make a living by doing odd jobs in Guangdong province.
Bamou, located in Guangxi’s Baise city, was considered to be a village mired in abject poverty.
In 2014, about 1,000 out of the village’s 1,600 residents were living below the nation’s poverty line.
“Houses in the village were old and shabby, and most villagers worked away from home,” says Lin Liangsheng, a senior village official. “Only the elderly and children were ‘left behind’, and locals were living a hard life.”
In 2018, following President Xi Jinping’s speech where he declared that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, the local authority decided to develop rural tourism to improve the situation.
The village enjoys a mild temperature all year round and is an especially good place to beat the summer heat. The local government has made efforts in restoring the local ecosystem, growing aquatic plants and purifying the water. A road network and a project to conserve water were implemented, and internet infrastructure was installed.
Bamou also began developing agricultural tourism and has established a peach orchard and a 33-hectare rapeseed flower plantation. The latter drew 30,000 visits during the 2019 Spring Festival holiday.
The infrastructure upgrades and agricultural tourism development have turned the once isolated village into a popular tourist destination.
Tan returned home after seeing the positive changes in the village and renovated his house. He runs a homestay in Bamou to cater to tourists.
“I can also raise chickens and plant fruits, and the money is increasing,” Tan says.
In 2019, Bamou was officially named a national rural tourism village by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The village has found favor among tourists from neighboring areas.
Rural tourism development has not just improved the local environment, but brought better financial opportunities for Tan and other residents. Many got out of poverty by engaging in tourism and its related businesses. They are not only the witnesses, but also contributors, to the village’s prosperous development over the years.
Poverty alleviation
Xi declared that China had realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects on July 1, 2021.
It was a triumph, overcoming the challenge of having around 80 percent of China’s population living in rural areas — 70 percent of which were employed in the agriculture sector. In the process, China’s per capita disposable income increased to 32,189 yuan ($4,940) in 2020 from 171 yuan in 1978, according to a white paper released by the State Council Information Office last year.
With China eliminating the last vestiges of absolute poverty by the end of 2020, some 770 million rural residents have been lifted out of penury over the past four decades. The success is a result of both the Communist Party of China’s leadership and execution of wisdom from the country’s long history, experts say.
“For either socialist or capitalist countries, xiaokang is a very important issue, which is related to the economic stability of a society and even the sustainability of the stability and development of the whole community,” says Kim Tae-sung, chief of the Institute of Sino-Korean Culture and a translator of Chinese literature.
“Xiaokang requires certain economic conditions,” Kim says, adding that it is why late leader Deng Xiaoping proposed to have some people get rich first to lay the groundwork.
After the country’s economy took off, the social environment, including the economy, military and culture, continued to mature under the Party’s leadership and was ready for xiaokang, as proposed by Xi, Kim says.
The term xiaokang originates from The Book of Songs in China more than 2,000 years ago. It means “modest comfort”.
“The people are hard-pressed, and they need some modest comfort. Do well by the Central Plains, and your rule will spread beyond,” the book reads.
Centuries later, The Book of Rites described the ideal state of society that xiaokang would bring about. Both gave expression to the desire of ancient Chinese people for a better life.
“It was a strong motivation on the part of the people to achieve xiaokang,” says Wu Shaobai, a professor at the Party School of the Sichuan Committee of the CPC.
The Party has based the country’s governance on this concept and paid special attention to the improvement of the public’s lifestyle, Wu adds.
Born soon after the founding of New China in 1949, Wu has witnessed firsthand the social changes in the country. He was a zhiqing, a term referring to educated youth sent to the countryside, in the 1970s.
“It was a sensation when I bought a bike back then, since it was considered a luxury item,” he says.
Later, automobiles started to make their presence felt in the streets, which Wu deems a process of marching toward xiaokang.
In his home in Sichuan province, a total of 6.25 million rural residents from more than 11,000 villages rid themselves of absolute poverty in 2020.
“The Party’s leadership is the base of the success in the battle against poverty,” Wu says.
The CPC sent many to work in the villages.
“They led the rural public to build roads and infrastructure, and develop industries,” Wu says. “It’s a vivid reflection of the thinking behind people-centered development.”
Tangible changes
Since 2017, about 775,000 public servants have been dispatched to impoverished villages to support local officials in implementing specific poverty-alleviation measures at the household level, as well as to monitor and review progress at different stages.
In 2019, the central government provided about 126 billion yuan in subsidies for poverty alleviation.
The white paper from the State Council Information Office shows that from the outset, the CPC has made the well-being of the Chinese people and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation its abiding goals. Committed to meeting the people’s expectations for a better life, the Chinese communist movement, with Mao Zedong, Deng, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi as its leading representatives, has united the Chinese people in a tireless struggle over generations, pressing ahead toward the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
China chose to target the problem of poverty by centering its policies on human development, rural revitalization, rural-urban integration and the promotion of an ecological civilization, says Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira, former minister of tourism of Brazil.
“I moved to China four years ago, and during my time living here, I have seen for myself the daily changes in the cities and witnessed the rapid development of China’s economy and society,” says Teixeira who has visited 27 provinces in China.
“I was even more surprised by the integration process of China’s urban and rural areas, which are full of vitality under the policy of poverty eradication and rural revitalization.”
Teixeira says that China’s poverty reduction strategy could be a reference for other developing countries.
Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president, China Institute of International Studies, told an online event last year that China’s success with poverty reduction was a major contribution to global development.
Ruan, who has served as an advisory panel member for the United Nations Development Program’s human development reports, says poverty reduction was the hot issue on the agenda at every meeting he had attended.
“Thanks to the leadership of the CPC, we made the impossible possible,” he says.