Advertisement

Poverty threat unlikely to derail China’s push for common prosperity

  • Party congress expected to celebrate last year’s declared success in lifting lowest incomes and turn focus to 2049 goal
  • But disastrous heatwaves on top of drought, Covid-19 disruptions are pushing some people back in to penury

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
28
Illustration: Henry Wong

As harvest season approached at the end of August, Zhou Peifang – not her real name – grew increasingly desperate.

Advertisement
Zhou, 42, is a single mother of two whose household includes her elderly parents, who are farmers in the mountainous area of Bazhong in China’s Sichuan province.
A severe drought has killed almost any hope of a good harvest – whether it is rice, corn, sweet potato or soybean.

“It’s not only a problem of future income. I’m worried about tomorrow. We’re also running out of vegetables,” said Zhou, who earns 2,000 yuan (US$290) per month as a kindergarten teacher.

“I know my family is relatively poor … but I didn’t expect a drought could impact us so badly.”

Zhou and her family are among more than two million people affected by the summer heatwave – China’s most severe in six decades – on top of the drought which had already hit food and factory production, power supplies and transport across a vast swathe of the country.

Advertisement
Advertisement