China on a New Journey
5gvirusnews News Centre Nur-Sultan Dr. Nurfer TERCAN / 19 December 2020
China has launched aid efforts to accelerate the international poverty reduction process
In a congratulatory letter to the International Forum on Sharing Poverty Reduction Experience, which opened in Beijing in December 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China is willing to work with all countries to promote international poverty reduction and to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
In the letter, Xi also set out the historical course, the great achievements and the international contribution of the efforts made by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government to reduce poverty. Xi’s letter demonstrated China’s unwavering determination to respond, together with the world, to the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, to jointly promote poverty reduction and to help more people around the world benefit from the results of poverty reduction. Calling the eradication of poverty “a common ideal of humanity”, Xi said that the CPC and the Chinese government have made unremitting and arduous efforts to secure a better life for the people.
Over the past more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, more than 700 million people in China have been lifted out of poverty, contributing more than 70 per cent to global poverty reduction. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC and the Chinese government have moved poverty reduction to a more prominent position and waged the largest and fiercest battle against poverty in history.
After eight years of sustained effort, China has achieved its poverty reduction target for the new era as planned.
The country has lifted all the rural poor below the current income standard out of poverty, removed all poor counties from the poverty list, and eliminated absolute poverty and overall regional poverty.
With nearly 100 million poor people in rural areas freed from poverty, China has won an important victory that has made an impression on the world.
“Between 1981 and 2004, China succeeded in lifting more than half a billion people out of extreme poverty. This is certainly the greatest step towards overcoming poverty in history. China’s efforts alone ensured that the world achieved the Millennium Development Goal on poverty reduction. , “said Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank.
For China it has always been: “You yourself desire rank and standing; then help others to gain rank and standing.”
While advancing poverty reduction at home, China has always provided assistance to other developing countries to the best of its capacity and has contributed to global poverty reduction through concrete actions.
The country has established the China-UN Peace and Development Fund and the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund, and has made solid progress in cooperation projects under frameworks such as the Pilot Project of Poverty Reduction Cooperation in East Asia and China-Africa Poverty Reduction. It was also stated that China continues to seek greater synergy between Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
According to a World Bank report, BRI projects could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million people out of moderate poverty. In June of this year, China joined the UN Alliance for Poverty Eradication as a founding member. In 2021 the country will host a workshop on digital-technology-enabled poverty reduction, with the aim of bringing out the role of digital technologies in eradicating poverty in the Asia-Pacific region.
Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), noted that China has provided assistance to at least 166 countries and international organisations to help reduce poverty in other developing countries.
After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China actively supported the G20‘s Debt Service Suspension Initiative in order to support the poorest countries. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently warned that the global response towards achieving the poverty and environmental goals adopted by world leaders in 2015 has not been “ambitious enough” and that bringing the extreme poverty rate below 3 per cent by 2030 will be very difficult. .
As the pandemic grows all over the world, the poverty reduction process is facing serious challenges. The UN has estimated that the devastating COVID-19 pandemic will cause a growing number of people to fall into poverty.
China’s practices in poverty reduction are attracting more and more attention from the international community, and more and more countries are learning from China’s poverty reduction concepts and experience. Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), stated that the eradication of poverty is not an inevitable product of a country’s rapid economic growth or of the world’s development, and that it is a country’s policy. Ryder believes that China’s achievements in poverty reduction prove the point. In his view, alongside measures taken to increase employment and improve social security and health services, a country can make progress in poverty reduction only by making it an important goal of policy. Stephen Perry, chairman of the London-based non-profit 48 Group Club, which is dedicated to promoting trade with China, said that the process of ending poverty through the policy of reform and opening-up in China is a valuable example for all countries striving to alleviate poverty. Speaking via video link at Session 2 of the 15th G20 Leaders’ Summit, Xi said that China is ready to work together with other countries to build a beautiful world that is free from poverty and enjoys common development.
China will soon finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and will set out on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist country.
China underlines that on the new journey it will consolidate and expand its achievements in poverty reduction and will continue to contribute wisdom and strength to accelerating the international poverty reduction process and improving the common well-being of humanity.
Translated from the Turkish original.