China's anti-poverty campaign has liberated hundreds of millions of citizens from absolute poverty, offering a compelling model for other developing countries around the world. This book demonstrates the path of China’s poverty alleviation and explores the approach and the theory underlying the country’s experience. The authors elucidate four important stages of poverty alleviation in China. They further investigate how the administration has balanced economic growth, regional development and the protection of ecosystem and cultural and heritage sites during China's remarkable transformation. As China’s development experience have extended the theory of international poverty alleviation, this book should provide valuable insights and offer enlightenment to global scholars, NGOs and governments of other developing countries.

Regardless of the poverty line used, the speed and scale of China’s poverty reduction is historically unprecedented. Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$1.90 per day—the international poverty line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty—has fallen by close to 800 million, accounting for almost three-quarters of the global reduction in extreme poverty. In 2021, China declared that it had eradicated extreme poverty according to its national poverty threshold, and that it had built a “moderately prosperous society in all respects.†? However, a significant number of people remain vulnerable, with incomes below a threshold more typically used to define poverty in upper-middle-income countries. China has set a new goal of approaching common prosperity by 2035, which can help keep the policy focus on the vulnerable population. Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead explores the key drivers of China’s poverty alleviation achievements and considers the lessons of China’s experience for other developing countries. The report also makes suggestions for China’s future policies. China’s approach to poverty reduction was based on two pillars. The first aimed for broad-based economic transformation to open new economic opportunities and raise average incomes. The second was the recognition that targeted support was needed to alleviate persistent poverty; this support was initially provided to disadvantaged areas and later to individual households. The success of China’s economic development and the associated reduction of poverty also benefited from effective governance, which helped coordinate multiple government agencies and induce cooperation from nongovernment stakeholders. To illustrate the role of broad-based economic transformation for poverty alleviation, separate sections of the report analyze growing agricultural productivity, incremental industrialization, managed urbanization and rural-to-urban migration, and the role of infrastructure.

Over the past 40 years, China has made significant progress towards its poverty alleviation goals. The rural population under the current poverty line has decreased by 739.9 million. China has contributed to more than 70 per cent of world poverty reduction. To better promote the new anti-poverty strategy and to serve as a reference for poverty alleviation in other developing countries, this paper summarises the main experiences of China's poverty alleviation over the past 40 years and then discusses the challenges associated with implementing the targeted poverty alleviation policy in the new era. China's experience with poverty alleviation includes development-oriented poverty alleviation, improving self-development capabilities of the poor population, encouraging multiple subjects to participate in poverty alleviation and focusing on innovation and ways to improve poverty alleviation. Although China's poverty alleviation initiatives have achieved significant successes, there are still several challenges that should be of concern in the coming years, such as the diminishing marginal effect of financial inputs on poverty alleviation, the resulting negative incentives for the poor to improve their internal motivations and the insufficient participation of markets and social forces in poverty alleviation. Given these challenges, this paper provides suggestions for anti-poverty policies beyond 2020.

China’s War against the Many Faces of Poverty measures multidimensional poverty in China and deprivation related to income, education, health issues, living standards and social security. The book adopts a well-developed methodology using three different empirical datasets to analyse aspects of regional diversity across rural and urban and migrant populations of China. The book also analyses the links between development policies considered by the government and the various facets of poverty in light of rapid economic growth and addresses important policy implications. In the existing literature, in-depth research on multidimensional poverty in China is almost non-existent. This book is a pioneer study in this important field of research. With its innovative approach in concepts and methodologies and in its analysis of policy implications make this book a definitive and valuable addition to the literature.

Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$ 1.90 per day has fallen by close to 800 million. This report explores the key drivers for China's achievements in poverty, considers lessons for other developing countries, and puts forward suggestions for China?s future policies.

The year 2018 marks 40 years of reform and development in China (1978–2018). This commemorative book assembles some of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Chinese economy to reflect on what has been achieved as a result of the economic reform programs, and to draw out the key lessons that have been learned by the model of growth and development in China over the preceding four decades. This book explores what has happened in the transformation of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years for China itself, as well as for the rest of the world, and discusses the implications of what will happen next in the context of China’s new reform agenda. Focusing on the long-term development strategy amid various old and new challenges that face the economy, this book sets the scene for what the world can expect in China’s fifth decade of reform and development. A key feature of this book is its comprehensive coverage of the key issues involved in China’s economic reform and development. Included are discussions of China’s 40 years of reform and development in a global perspective; the political economy of economic transformation; the progress of marketisation and changes in market-compatible institutions; the reform program for state-owned enterprises; the financial sector and fiscal system reform, and its foreign exchange system reform; the progress and challenges in economic rebalancing; and the continuing process of China’s global integration. This book further documents and analyses the development experiences including China’s large scale of migration and urbanisation, the demographic structural changes, the private sector development, income distribution, land reform and regional development, agricultural development, and energy and climate change policies.

This open access book explores the historical, cultural and philosophical contexts that have made anti-poverty the core of Chinese society since Liberation in 1949, and why poverty alleviation measures evolved from the simplistic aid of the 1950s to Xi Jinping’s precision poverty alleviation and its goal of eliminating absolute poverty by 2020. The book also addresses the implications of China’s experience for other developing nations tackling not only poverty but such issues as pandemics, rampant urbanization and desertification exacerbated by global warming. The first of three parts draws upon interviews of rural and urban Chinese from diverse backgrounds and local and national leaders. These interviews, conducted in even the remotest areas of the country, offer candid insights into the challenges that have forced China to continually evolve its programs to resolve even the most intractable cases of poverty. The second part explores the historic, cultural and philosophical roots of old China’s meritocratic government and how its ancient Chinese ethics have led to modern Chinese socialism’s stance that “poverty amidst plenty is immoral”. Dr. Huang Chengwei, one of China’s foremost anti-poverty experts, explains the challenges faced at each stage as China’s anti-poverty measures evolved over 70 years to emphasize “enablement” over “aid” and to foster bottom-up initiative and entrepreneurialism, culminating in Xi Jinping’s precision poverty alleviation. The book also addresses why national economic development alone cannot reduce poverty; poverty alleviation programs must be people-centered, with measurable and accountable practices that reach even to household level, which China has done with its “First Secretary” program. The third part explores the potential for adopting China’s practices in other nations, including the potential for replicating China’s successes in developing countries through such measures as the Belt and Road Initiative. This book also addresses prevalent misperceptions about China’s growing global presence and why other developing nations must address historic, systemic causes of poverty and inequity before they can undertake sustainable poverty alleviation measures of their own.