Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on February 25, 2021 that China has secured a complete victory in its fight against poverty with the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line having all been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages having been removed from the poverty list.
This milestone calls for a new understanding of the country’s methods in ending poverty. Based on the national conditions, China has adopted a series of effective policies and measures by drawing on the joint efforts of the government, society and market to reduce poverty.
The implementation of targeted poverty alleviation measures intended to answer the questions of “To whom help and support will be offered”, “Who will offer help and support”, “How to offer help and support”, and “How to measure the end of poverty alleviation”.
Among the various methods, social assistance method has been attached great importance, which is the practice of Chinese traditional virtues of “helping each other”, “uniting all efforts for a common purpose” and “helping those in need”.
The political advantages of the socialist system bring together resources of the whole society and generate solidarity and joint actions.
Private enterprises, social organizations, and individual citizens are the new forces of poverty alleviation in China. Efforts such as the “Ten Thousand Enterprises Helping Ten Thousand Villages” campaign have created a variety of synergies in society.
Since 2016, the “Ten Thousand Enterprises Helping Ten Thousand Villages” Targeted Poverty Alleviation Action (Action) has been jointly decided by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, the National Rural Revitalization Administration, and the China Society for Promotion of the Guangcai Programme. The Action defines private enterprises as helpers, and the registered poor villages as the recipients, mainly with methods of contract winning and village-enterprise joint construction.
In this way, it strives to mobilize over 10,000 private enterprises nationwide to participate and helps more than 10,000 poor villages to speed up the process of poverty eradication in three to five years, thus contributing to the healthy development of non-public sector and personnel in fighting against poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects.
The Action has three requirements:
First, the Action insists on government guidance, farmers’ principal part, departmental linkage, private enterprises’ assistance and social participation, and strives to realize the joint efforts of government, society and poor people’s self-reliance.
Second, the Action insists on precision of identification, assistance, management and assessment, with a focus on assisting households and individuals of registered poverty.
Third, the Action adheres to balancing justice and profit while prioritizing the former. It organizes private enterprises to help poor villages to establish a long-term mechanism of poverty alleviation, and strive to achieve a win-win cooperation for both villages and enterprises. Furthermore, all actions above should be conducted within limits of capabilities by enterprises in a conscious and voluntary way.
In response to this call, Chongqing Rail Transit Group (a transportation company of Chongqing Municipality directly under the Central Government) launched a series of poverty alleviation actions targeting Yunyang County of Chongqing.
Before 2015, poor villages accounted for 34% of the county’s 478 villages, with a poverty headcount ratio of 14.5%. Meanwhile, Yunyang was home to the second highest poverty population of Chongqing.
In recent years, Chongqing Rail Transit Group has made full use of its unique advantages, and has helped 29 impoverished households and 99 impoverished individuals in Xiehe Village of Yunyang County to be lifted out of poverty on schedule. With the assistance of Chongqing Rail Transit Group, Xiehe Village in Naixi Town, Yunyang County has transformed from a “shell village” in 2018 to a collective economic income of more than 800,000 yuan in 2020, ranking first among 447 village communities in Yunyang County in terms of total economic volume. Undoubtedly, it has achieved a positive transformation from poverty alleviation to revitalization.
According to Qin Min, Group member and secretary general of the Chongqing CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference), poverty alleviation efforts from Chongqing Rail Transit Group to Yunyang County have the following features.
Since 2017, Chongqing Rail Transit Group has made fruitful efforts and consolidated the achievement, further contributing to the rural revitalization. In addition, the Rail Transit Group has dispatched a number of officials to carry out work in the village. For example, Luo Qiang was assigned as the First Secretary of Xiehe Village. All staff have taken an active part in poverty alleviation by consuming products and services from Xiehe Village of Yunyang County.
Propped up by company resources, exhibition and distribution channels for agricultural products in Xiehe Village have been constantly improved.
Specifically, poverty alleviation work from Chongqing Rail Transit Group can be divided into three parts.
The first is to utilize company’s publicizing advantages to promote development. Relying on its own enterprise resources, Chongqing Rail Transit Group utilizes the advantage of publicity and takes various measures such as building an “Internet + commerce” platform and creating local spokespersons to explore new exhibition and marketing channels for the agricultural products of poverty-stricken villages.
In 2013, the Group initiated poverty alleviation schemes, aiming to lift Yunyang county out of poverty. It decided on a policy over promoting intelligence and openness, and clarified specific plans including publicizing, field research and supporting actions. It has continuously carried out promotions of tourism and agricultural products, using advertising resources to build an all-round, multi-channel publicity carrier.
For example, more than 200 light boxes have been selected at airports, train stations and other high traffic stations to publicize tourism, agricultural products from Yunyang.
Thirty thousand one-way rail tickets are produced with images of selected unique attractions in Yunyang and videos about Yunyang special scenery are scrolled on over 16,000 PIS platforms in full-line network.
The official Wechat and Weibo account, and media like Urban Hit News sponsored by Chongqing Rail Transit Group, are used to publicize tourism, agricultural products and poverty alleviation work of Yunyang.
Up to now, Chongqing Rail Transit Group has invested around 350 million yuan of advertising market value for tourism resources in Yunyang County, purchased and sold about 12.5 million yuan of agricultural specialties on behalf of Yunyang County, making prominent contributions to the industrial development of the County.
The second part is to take social responsibility by exploring social resources. “Please take my song back to your home, please leave your smile…” This was the lovely singing from Xie Village Primary School at Children’s Day in 2020.
Chongqing Rail Group organized young volunteers together with children from Xiehe Village Primary School in Nixi Town, Yunyang County by making a video call. It was inconvenient for volunteers to celebrate Children’s Day with students due to stringent prevention measures of Covid-19.
Even in such situation, this kind of poverty alleviation work was still undertaken on time. This singing was also contagious to these young volunteers and they prepared all sorts of gifts such as bubble machines and school supplies. This special conversation is just one of many activities undertaken by Chongqing Rail Transit Group to enhance its responsibility.
Since 2018, Chongqing Rail Group has organized 10 batches of outstanding young volunteers with a total of 31 people to carry out voluntary teaching in Xiehe Village, teaching them English, calligraphy, painting and other courses.
They also set up the activity of a benevolent library corner and donate over 600 volumes of books to the school in order to arouse children’s passion for learning. Being a pioneer, Chongqing Rail Transit Group appeals to charitable enterprises and individuals for establishing poverty alleviation fund targeted at Yunyang County, with a total donation of 845,000 yuan. This fund is dedicated to care faculty and left-behind children in poverty-stricken areas. Meanwhile, charitable enterprises also fund Xiehe Village of Nixi Town with a total of 301,000 yuan.
The third part is the implementation of assistance from Party Construction Sector. Party Construction Sector of Chongqing Rail Transit Group plays an important role in social assistance. The measures are as follows.
• Set up poverty alleviation office in the Group;
• Research and design customized plans of poverty alleviation;
• Organize more than 20 forums and conferences on poverty alleviation;
• Conduct field research in poverty-stricken villages for over 30 times;
• Select and dispatch outstanding Party organizations at primary level to cooperate with Xiehe Village;
• Help Xiehe Village set up studying room and visiting corridor about Party history;
• Give books on Party Construction and poverty alleviation as gifts.
In September 2017, Chongqing Rail Transit Group assigned Luo Qiang as First Secretary of Xiehe Village. Luo Qiang visited every household and walked into every corner of the village to know about villagers’ obstacles. In the fourth year of his work, “he has transformed himself from an outsider to a reliable official for villagers.”
Lu Yun, a poverty-stricken household from Xiehe Village, said that Chongqing Rail Transit Group has played a key role in supporting Xiehe Village. They paid to repair road lights in the village and governed the environment including sewage treatment, pipeline maintenance and waste classifying, etc.
“I join the service company of the village to plant black fungus,” said Lu Yun. The Group also helps market the black fungus and there would be bonus for farmers in the end of the year. “I received a bonus of 400 yuan last year”, according to Lu Yun.
Officials from the county administration and the Group also show their deepest concern about grassroots. Xu Yuangqing in Xiehe Village, who was afflicted by mental disorder and hypertension, has stayed unemployed for years. He and his over-80-year-old mother are mainly supported by his wife doing farm work and his son being a migrant worker. Lack of work force, this family is in hot water. Before China’s Lunar New Year of 2020, leaders in Chongqing Rail Transit Group, together with Xiong Yumei, Vice-chairman of Yunyang County Political Consultative Conference, visited Xu Yuanqing and knew more about his family, health status, etc. They also brought some necessities such as oil and rice.
Among all cases about poverty alleviation by enterprises, Chongqing Rail Transit Group is just one of them. In the future, more poverty alleviation efforts will be made by the enterprises to revitalize the rural economy while fulfilling their social responsibility.
As the old Chinese saying goes, “Don’t give a man fish, teach him how to fish.” The poor are not merely recipients of poverty alleviation, but also agents of poverty elimination, and finally become self-reliable “fishermen”. The key to China’s success in defeating absolute poverty lies in the effective interaction and coordination between a top-down government leadership and bottom-up grassroots innovation.
Source: Lao News Agency
