Download Summary of Poverty Alleviation of China

Summary of Poverty Alleviation of China
By Madam Jiang Lie
From The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development
The Lecture is about China's poverty alleviation work, the policy, measures, achievement and
challenge.
Since 1949 when the People's Republic of China was established, China has achieved a lot in over
60 years in poverty alleviation, China successfully wins the battle fighting with poverty. China
solved the food problem of 22% of the world's population with just 9% of the world's land.
Especially after the adoption of opening up policy and reform in 1978, the poor population in
China quickly dropped from 0.25 billion to 26.88million.
China's poverty alleviation work can be divided into three periods.
1. The First Period, from 1949 to 1978.
In 1949, New China was born. China in this year was very poor and weak. According to the
statistics of UN, and the international organizations in Asia, Pacific regions, the annual GDP per
capita in China was only 27 US dollar, which was only 2/3 of the average annual GDP per capita
of Asian countries (44US dollar), and less than half of the number in India (57 US dollar) that
time.
Once the new China was born, the new government adopted some policies to reform the social
system, mainly aiming at the rural land system. In 1950, we got the land reform, and the
government wanted every farmer and household in rural areas have their own land to grow food.
Chinese government worked very hard to fight with poverty, but by 1978, there was still 0.25
billion poor people, which was about 30.7% of the total population.
Meanwhile, the population of China grew from 0.45 billion in 1949 to 1.3 billion now.
2. The second period, from 1979 to 2000
(1)1979 to 1986
Poor population in this whole period dropped from 0.25 billion to 0.125 billion.
Focusing on System reform, e.g. Land system
(2)1986-1993 large-scale support to poor people
The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development was established
in 1986
In this stage, the poor population dropped from 125 million to 80 million
(3) 1994-2000
The eastern part of China get developed, and become rich