From poverty alleviation to rural revitalization, how can Chinese-style modernization benefit the world?

Kunming, 5 May (ZXS) -- From poverty alleviation to rural revitalization, how can Chinese-style modernization benefit the world?

——Interview with Yu Yunquan, President of the Institute of Contemporary China and the World

Written by Xiong Jiaxin

Since the reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation, completely eliminating absolute poverty in 2020, and reducing the number of rural poor by 9899.2021 million. In <>, China proposed to comprehensively promote rural revitalization and make every effort to consolidate the achievements in poverty alleviation. After eradicating absolute poverty, what challenges will China's rural revitalization face? What kind of practical path has China explored? What has China's effective practice of rural revitalization brought to the cause of global poverty reduction? How does Chinese-style modernization promote world development and prosperity?

A few days ago, the Institute of Contemporary China and the World released a think tank report "From Poverty Alleviation to Rural Revitalization: China's Practical Path and World Significance". Yu Yunquan, President of the Institute of Contemporary China and the World, was interviewed exclusively by the China News Agency's "East-West Question" to deeply interpret the report and answer the above questions.

The following is a summary of the interview:

China News Agency: After eliminating absolute poverty, what challenges will China's rural revitalization face?

Yu Yunquan: Poverty reduction governance is a long-term systematic project. In China, rural construction runs through poverty reduction and governance. At present, China has completely eliminated absolute poverty, but it still faces many challenges on the road to rural revitalization.

First of all, the elderly, the disabled, the lonely and other physiological and social vulnerable groups among the rural poverty alleviation population not only have weak economic development ability, but also often have problems such as family economic security difficulties, and in the face of major diseases, natural disasters, sudden accidents and other situations, there will be a long-term potential risk of returning to poverty and causing poverty.

Second, China still faces problems such as regional disparities, urban-rural disparities, and income disparities. After poverty alleviation, the development foundation, starting speed and extension depth of the western rural areas are relatively backward, and to a certain extent, they rely on the central financial support policies and the tilt of transfer payments. How to enhance regional self-development capabilities in promoting common prosperity has become a new challenge.

In October 2021, the staff of the testing laboratory conducted sampling at the lake sheep breeding base in Changlebao Village, Yuyang District, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province. The base has driven 10,5000 farming households to plant grass and 1000,<> farming households to lift themselves out of poverty. Photo by Han Haidan

In addition, solving relative poverty is a major current issue. The goal of solving relative poverty is more demanding, the scope of targets is wider, the causes of poverty are more complex and more dynamic. With the advancement of global digitalization, the digital divide has become one of the reasons for deepening poverty, and new pressures have emerged to solve the relative poverty in rural areas.

China News Agency: What kind of practical path has China explored to cope with these challenges? What have been achieved?

Yu Yunquan: The steady progress of China's poverty reduction and governance not only benefits from the broad opportunities brought by the country's economic transformation and upgrading, but also depends on the Chinese government's scientific overall planning for the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. From consolidating and expanding the achievements in poverty alleviation to comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, China has implemented continuous and stable policies and measures to build a strong guarantee for sustainable rural development, and formed a "DREAM" practice model suitable for national conditions, namely Dynamic Poverty Prevention, Rural Industry Support, and East-West Paired Assistance), Assimilation of Relocated Residents, Modernization of Rural Governance.

Dynamic monitoring of poverty prevention consolidates the results of poverty reduction. China has formed a monitoring grid system covering towns, villages and groups through self-declaration of information by low-income rural residents and refined door-to-door inspections by rural grassroots cadres. In 2022, 65.3% of the monitored targets have eliminated the risk of falling back into poverty, and the rest have implemented assistance measures, effectively preventing the emergence of regional, systematic and large-scale poverty regression.

In June 2021, the "well-off" flower beds on the streets of Beijing attracted tourists to take photos. Photo by Hu Qingming

The development of rural characteristic industries has achieved initial results. The Chinese government continues to increase support for poverty alleviation areas to enhance the development of industries with rural characteristics, and promote the inflow of labor, land, capital and other resources to rural areas. Up to now, each of China's 832 poverty alleviation counties has formed two to three characteristic leading industries with outstanding advantages and strong driving force, and the output value of characteristic leading industries in poverty alleviation areas has exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below).

East-West cooperation forms regional complementary advantages. The Chinese government has actively promoted the implementation of the east-west coordination and assistance mechanism, and eight eastern provinces (municipalities) have paired up to help 8 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in the west, so as to enhance the holistic, systematic and coordinated nature of interregional poverty reduction governance. In 10, the eastern provinces guided 2022,2633 enterprises to invest in the western cooperation areas, purchasing or helping to market 954.5 billion yuan of agricultural products in the cooperation areas.

The social integration of relocated residents is implemented in an orderly manner. Various facilities such as education, medical care, and industry have been built in relocation and resettlement areas across China, and at least one relocated family with labor has basically been employed, and the employment scale of the masses has reached 1.459 million, realizing the orderly transition from poverty alleviation relocation to sustainable relocation.

The modernization of rural governance has been solidly advanced. In the construction of rural grassroots organizations, China has rationally allocated resources with efficient and powerful institutional mechanisms, extensively carried out pilot work on the construction of rural governance systems, and promoted the healthy and benign development of rural areas in terms of industrial layout, living environment, and personnel training.

In July 2022, farmers who have been lifted out of poverty in Yangjiang Town, Qionghai City, Hainan Province, learn to make bamboo ware. Photo by Mon Zhongde

China News Agency: From poverty alleviation to rural revitalization, how can China inject strength into the global poverty reduction cause?

Yu Yunquan: According to UN data, the number of people living in extreme poverty in the world is expected to increase by 2022 million to 7500 million in 9500. In the face of the grim situation, the Chinese government has deeply participated in global poverty reduction governance. China has always adhered to the top-level design of multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization to carry out extensive international cooperation on poverty reduction and governance, while deepening regional cooperation on inclusive and inclusive development.

Since 2009, China has donated US$1 million to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to implement 3 South-South cooperation projects, sending more than 25 experts to teach agricultural technology and poverty reduction experience in project host countries. With the high-quality construction of the "Belt and Road", China has opened up obstacles to poverty reduction among developing countries and smoothed the channel of balanced and coordinated development. A World Bank study predicts that full implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative will lift 300.760 million people out of extreme poverty and 3200 million out of moderate poverty.

In November 2018, in Beizhuangzi Village, Xuanhua District, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, farmer Gu Baojun sorts out his harvested corn. Photo by Chen Xiaodong

China's poverty reduction experience has provided useful reference and enlightenment for accelerating the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, continuously deepened international exchanges and applied cooperation, and provided practical assistance to other countries in their poverty reduction cause.

Through the governance model of industrial poverty reduction, China gives the poor equal development opportunities and accelerates the recovery and improvement of the reproduction capacity of the poor, proving that "participatory" poverty reduction is a good medicine to get rid of poverty. In international cooperation on poverty reduction, China has continued the same governance logic. In recent years, the construction of poverty reduction industry cooperation projects between China and developing countries has been in full swing, including providing technical assistance to African and Southeast Asian countries, developing industrial projects suitable for the local ecological environment, and forming sustainable agricultural industries.

China's poverty reduction practice also shows that education and skills training play a fundamental role in poverty eradication, which can improve the self-development ability of poor marginalized people, and then obtain employment opportunities and eventually get out of poverty. Since 2020, China has cooperated with the World Bank to help East African countries cultivate technical backbones in local pillar industries such as digital technology, agriculture, energy, and shipping. At the same time, projects such as the "20+20 Cooperation Plan for China-Africa Universities" have been successively implemented to provide short-term training and study opportunities for teachers in developing countries to obtain master's and doctoral degrees, so as to cultivate urgently needed talents for poverty alleviation in the international community.

In December 2022, at Ruili Vocational and Technical School in Ruian, Zhejiang Province, children from families in the southern county of Sichuan Province who have been lifted out of poverty are learning the operation of a robotic arm in the classroom. Photo by Sun Rin

China News Agency: Comprehensively promoting rural revitalization is the meaning of China's modernization. How does Chinese-style modernization promote world development and prosperity?

Yu Yunquan: As a large country with a population of more than 14.10 billion and the world's largest developing country, China's concentration on modernization is itself a major contribution to human development. China's battle against poverty has lifted nearly one-fifth of the world's population out of absolute poverty, achieving the poverty reduction goal of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development <> years ahead of schedule. In the process of achieving rapid modernization, China has maintained social stability and order, and continuously raised the level of sharing the fruits of reform and development by the whole people, adding more stability and positive energy to world peace and development.

Chinese-style modernization has provided sustained impetus and new opportunities for world development, and has become one of the engines of world economic growth. In the past 10 years, China's average economic growth rate has been 6.6%, ranking among the world's major economies, much higher than the world average growth rate of 2.6% and the average growth rate of 3.7% of developing economies in the same period. China's average contribution to world economic growth reached 38.6%, more than the combined contribution rate of G<> countries.

Dulongjiang Township, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Photo by Zhong Xin

Chinese-style modernization has created a new form of human civilization and provided a new guide for the cause of human modernization. The successful practice of Chinese-style modernization has provided valuable experience for people around the world to shake off poverty and turmoil and pursue peace and development, contributed Chinese wisdom to the development of human civilization in many key areas such as poverty reduction, green development, overall economic growth and stable development of the whole society, provided another modernization model different from Western modernization, and solved the problem of modernization in developing countries.

In the future, with the continuous advancement of Chinese-style modernization, while its strong vitality and great superiority continue to be highlighted, the background of Chinese practice, Chinese wisdom and Chinese experience will become more profound, and new practical achievements will be achieved with new explorations and new paths, and will play a more active role in global economic development, poverty alleviation and ecological protection. (End)

Respondent Profile:

Yu Yunquan, Dean of the Institute of Contemporary China and the World, Editor-in-Chief of External Communication, Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary China and the World, Ph.D. in History, Senior Editor, Researcher. His research interests include international communication and cultural soft power. Cultural masters and "four batches" of talents, leading talents in the national news and publishing industry.