Recently, the Chinese government released a significant economic report about a remarkable decline in its poverty rate; the report indicated that China was able to help 66 million citizens to overcome poverty in rural areas ; China was able to achieve this goal in three years, from 2012 until 2015.
This plan came as a part of a bigger plan related to human rights that was established in 2012.
The Chinese government, indicated that the plan is based upon developing various areas in China, related to economic development, social and cultural development, political development, and human rights; human rights mainly focuses on minorities rights, including women, children and elderly citizens.
The government also, indicated that it is exerting maximum effort to apply the development plan, that was set in 2012; it is actually considered the second major developmental plan in China, after the first one that was adopted in 2009.
According to Hu Angang Hu Linlin and Chang Zhixiao, in the article, China’s economic growth and poverty reduction (1978-2002), China’s economy has entered the take-off stage since 1978the average growth rate of per capita GDP has been up to 8.1%. Just as Amartya Sen has analyzed: in the past two decades, China’s economy has been developed very rapidly. The growth of China’s income per capita is much faster than that of any other region in the world. Nevertheless, people have always failed to realize that it is rather terrific for such a large country as China to have so rapid growth in per capita income. It’s totally different from those well-known countries or regions with rapid economic growth such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Unlike China, who has very large rural population, Hong Kong and Singapore are actually cities. It is an extraordinary achievement for such a large country with so great regional differences to obtain such a high average growth rate.
Meanwhile, China’s rural poverty population has decreased by a big margin.
According to China’s national poverty line, rural poverty population has dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 28.2 million in 2002, decreasing by 88.7%. Poverty population has averagely decreased by 9.24 million per year.
According to the international poverty line, which is that cost of living per capita per day is below $1, the World Bank estimates that China’s rural poverty population has dropped from 280 million in 1990 to 124 million in 1997, decreasing by 55.7%.
It should be noted that China’s achievements in poverty reduction make huge contributions to the cause of poverty reduction of the world. It is estimated by the World Bank that according to the international poverty line (per capita cost of living is below $1 per day), China’s poverty population dropped from 542 million to 375 million inthe 1980s (referring to the period of 1980-1990), decreasing by167million. In the corresponding period, the poverty population of the whole world decreased by 98.3 million. China’s contributing rate to the world’s cause of poverty reduction is 166.9%; which indicates that the Chinese economy is such a significant economy that has its strong impact worldwide.
