Are China’s lauded anti-poverty triumphs at risk of vanishing?
In the country’s vast rural regions, officials armed with poverty relapse dossiers are struggling to track and help the vulnerable avoid destitution
In Zhongwei, a city in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region, fighting poverty seems to be a never-ending battle.
While the country as a whole has made tremendous gains in living standards, in July, the city’s Shapotou district announced that 28 more individuals had been added to a poverty relapse watch list.
The officials who update the list maintain dossiers on families that are in dire financial straits and aim to stop them falling below the poverty line, while also ensuring that they do not become too reliant on government handouts.
The district did not say how many people in total are on the list but its updates are part of the administration’s attempts to avoid a return to widespread poverty as the economy struggles to regain momentum.
The goal is a national priority.
According to state news agency Xinhua, China has spent nearly 1.6 trillion yuan (US$306 billion) to alleviate poverty since Chinese President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
