Role models in China’s poverty alleviation fight are presented with medals, certificates and plaques at a gathering at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Feb 25. (YIN BOGU / XINHUA)

President Xi Jinping announced on Feb 25 that China has scored a “complete victory” in its fight against poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said absolute poverty has been eradicated in the world’s most populous country.

Xi made the announcement while addressing a grand gathering held in Beijing to mark the country’s accomplishments in poverty alleviation and honor its model poverty fighters.

Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty. All the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list.

It was a miracle that helped the world’s most populous country achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal on poverty eradication 10 years ahead of the schedule.

According to the World Bank’s international poverty line, the number of Chinese people lifted out of poverty over the past 40 years accounts for more than 70 percent of the global total. Since the beginning of reform and opening-up in late 1970s, 770 million rural residents have shaken off poverty as per the current poverty line.

With such achievements, China has created another “miracle” that will “go down in history”, Xi said.

Xi recalled that he has presided over seven symposiums on poverty alleviation over the past eight years. During the same period, he has made over 50 research tours on poverty reduction and inspected all the 14 contiguous impoverished areas in China.

The victory is one of the Chinese nation realizing its dream of thousands of years, one of the whole country as millions have been mobilized throughout the past years, and one of the Communist Party of China, which has struggled for a century for the well-being of the people it has vowed to serve from the beginning. The CPC also guides the nation in solving some of the most difficult livelihood problems in areas of adverse natural situations including food, potable water, transport, electricity, education, and telecommunications.

As part of the efforts, millions of local residents received training to find urban jobs; some got loans or seed money to start their own businesses while some were relocated out of rugged mountain areas.

Relocation in mountainous regions often proved the most challenging task. 

Thousands of students can now have regular meals at schools after their families moved to new neighborhoods which also let them enjoy urban life. Dozens of ethnic groups are lifted above poverty that has plagued generations of them for centuries. 

The war against poverty was a people’s war, assisted by people across the country, notably urban returnees, entrepreneurs and professionals.

The entire society was mobilized. Since 2015, 3 million cadres from governments, State-owned enterprises and public institutions in cities and towns were sent to the countryside to work out tailored poverty relief packages for each poor family. Taking into account the country’s arrangement of pairing richer areas with poor ones since the 1990s, analysts also touted the victory as an achievement of socialism.

Numerous villages, model volunteers and businesses were honored at the gathering. Xi and other leaders of the country presented medals, certificates and plaques to role models in the poverty alleviation fight.

Xi also asked the nation to remember more than 1,800 people who died during their relief efforts over the past eight years.