For ye have the poor always with you: Exploring China's latest war on poverty

• Main Author: DONALDSON, John A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: China; poverty; Asian Studies; Economic Policy; Inequality and Stratification
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3369; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4626/viewcontent/Poor_China_CACR_2019_pvoa.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

John Donaldson’s section discusses Xi Jinping’s ambitious pledge to end poverty in China by 2020, toward which the CCP has deployed a locally adaptable set of policies that have mobilized actors in the public and private sectors and tied officials’ performance to success in poverty reduction. The Party understands that poverty—a manifestation of a severe inability to provide a good life for the people—represents a concerning indictment of the regime’s legitimacy overall. This paper fills in an analytic gap among Western sources regarding these programs, which have to date seen well over fifty billion dollars of poverty alleviation funding disbursed since the pledge was made. Current poverty reduction policy in China includes an impressive array of locally- oriented, precise guidelines that are also adaptable to circumstances on the ground. At the same time, these measures suffer from a number of problems and the motivation to falsify or otherwise manipulate data is high for local officials. In particular, current poverty reduction programs appear to operate based on a number of assumptions about the nature of rural poverty in ways that do not comport with reality. While certainly not lacking effort and energy, and while great progress has undoubtedly been made, this section concludes that the absolute, total elimination of poverty from China will certainly not occur any time soon.