Happy Days in Hongde Village

Neat rows of new houses, leafy streets, and beaming faces—this was the picturesque bucolic scene that greeted us when we visited Hongde Village in Hongsibu District, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China on June 15, 2020. The newly built village for relocated residents had just recently received a visit from General Secretary Xi Jinping. "We have a village school, kindergarten, and health center, and a bus trip from the village to the center of Hongsibu costs just two yuan," explains Hei Maosen, deputy secretary of the CPC Committee of Hongsibu Town, as he watches public buses and taxis approach along the village road. 

Dramatic changes for Liu Kerui's family 

Liu Kerui and his family, who have just recently shaken off poverty, live at No. 7 in Section C of Hongde Village. On June 8, 2020, the family welcomed a distinguished guest to their tranquil courtyard. That afternoon General Secretary Xi paid them a visit, checking out the family's cowshed, yard, bedrooms, and kitchen. He sat and chatted with the family in their spacious living room to get a detailed understanding of their situation with regard to employment, income, medical care, and social security. "I didn't expect it! We were very excited and very happy!" When we visited Liu on June 15, he couldn't hide his excitement when talking about Xi's visit. 

Hongde Village in Hongsibu District, Wuzhong, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT OF THE CPC COMMITTEE OF NINGXIA HUI AUTONOMOUS REGION 

Located in central Ningxia, Hongsibu District was originally a dry and barren place. At the end of the 20th century, it became the main battleground of a lift irrigation scheme to alleviate poverty, under which relay pumping stations were built to lift water from the Yellow River up hundreds of meters to nourish fertile agricultural land. Eight years ago, Liu Kerui's family moved from the remote valley of Xihaigu to Hongde Village in Hongsibu. The village has a total of 1,699 households and 7,013 residents. Most of the village residents came from Xihaigu, which is one of China's most impoverished areas. By 2019, with the poverty headcount ratio reduced to 0.78%, and the annual per capita disposable income of residents reaching 8,435 yuan, Hongde Village officially shook off the designation of being poor. 

"My family escaped poverty in 2017. Our annual income is now over 100,000 yuan," said Liu. When speaking about his family's income, Liu brims with satisfaction, using his fingers to add up their earnings. Liu looks after the cisterns in the village, while his wife has a part-time job nearby, earning them an income of at least 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a year. Liu's son and daughter-in-law work at a local textile factory and have an annual income of 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. In addition, the family keeps three cattle, which provide a net income of between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan a year, and there are also incomes from land transfer fees and shareholder dividends from the village cooperative. The family now earns more than it spends and grows much of what it eats. It is covered by the new rural cooperative medical scheme, while the children enjoy free compulsory education. 

In the living room, two particularly striking photos hang on the wall: one is a recent photo of the whole family smiling, the other is a photo of Liu's wife and daughter in front of their old mud-brick house. Liu tells me that these two photos also caught the attention of General Secretary Xi. "When we lived in the valley, it was all dirt roads and mud-brick houses, but now we live in brick and tile houses, with concrete roads right up to our doorstep. These are changes that, ten years ago, we wouldn't have even dared to think about!" 

The dramatic changes in Liu's family are a microcosm of the times. Over the years, Ningxia has implemented six large-scale relocation projects, involving a total of 1.23 million people. As China's largest area for residents relocated for environmental reasons, Hongsibu District has received a total of 233,000 residents. It has enabled impoverished communities, including the residents of Hongde Village, to bid farewell to the destitute and helpless state of surviving at the mercy of nature, and opened up a broad avenue out of poverty and toward development under socialism with Chinese characteristics. 

A poverty alleviation workshop near home 

While he was in Hongde Village, General Secretary Xi visited the village's poverty alleviation workshop. The workshop was set up with the help of an enterprise in Dehua County, Fujian Province. The result of collaboration between Fujian and Ningxia, the workshop is a vehicle for the dreams of more than 100 villagers to rise out of poverty and become prosperous. 

Fujian and Ningxia enjoy a deep relationship that is an exemplar of cooperation between the eastern and western regions. When General Secretary Xi was posted in Fujian Province, he personally promoted collaboration in poverty alleviation between Fujian and Ningxia. The two provinces have now been working together for more than 20 years, and the fruits of this collaboration have been abundant, with new villages for relocated residents and poverty alleviation factories appearing one after another in Ningxia. From donations of money, cows, and sheep, to operating local poverty alleviation factories in Ningxia, Fujian has been the perfect accompaniment in Ningxia's efforts to alleviate poverty and create prosperity. 

"Enterprises getting involved in setting up poverty alleviation workshops is extremely significant because it reflects the idea of those who get wealthy first bringing along those behind them," said General Secretary Xi when praising the poverty alleviation workshop in Hongde Village. He also made a very specific appeal, "The purpose of poverty alleviation workshops is to alleviate poverty. We must continue to operate them in this spirit, and orient them toward people in difficulty by recruiting them in greater numbers." 

According to Hei Maosen, Hongde's poverty alleviation workshop has brought a carton packaging company on board, which has created jobs for over 100 people, the majority of whom are elderly. The workshop has also recruited more than 30 young and middle-aged employees, which reflects that more young villagers are choosing to stay in Hongde for work. 

Entering the workshop, one sees a particularly eye-catching slogan on the wall, which reads, "My whole family and I will achieve prosperity together." The head of the workshop informed us that it has employed more than 60 elderly villagers to attach plastic handles to cartons. They have the ability to earn 700 or 800 yuan per month, and are extremely happy to be able to make their own contribution. 

Born in 1991, Hou Gang and his wife were among the first group of workers in the poverty alleviation workshop. Hou started out as a machine operator. Thanks to his diligence and enquiring mind, he mastered a number of machines in the workshop, and gradually rose from operator to team leader and then manager. He was elected workshop head at the beginning of this year. Hou and his wife now earn more than 7,000 yuan a month. Five years ago, his family was one of the village's registered poor households. Now they have built a new house, bought a car, and realized their dream of becoming prosperous. When General Secretary Xi inspected the workshop, Hou stood next to him. Full of emotion, Hou said he wanted to thank General Secretary Xi, this great era, and the good policies of the Party. "As young people, we have no reason not to work hard," he said. 

An even better life ahead 

"Now that you have relocated, an even better life awaits you. I hope that you folks will take a step forward and use your enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity to build a better life with your own hands." This is General Secretary Xi's great hope for Hongde Village. It also marks a new starting point on the wonderful blueprint of this resettled village. 

Speaking about the future development of Hongde Village, the village's Party branch secretary, Ren Jun, explained that Hongde will begin by developing an animal agriculture cooperative which would be open to local farmers, who would take part in a centralized program at an "enclave" breeding park. According to Ren, in 2019 the village's ten cooperatives earned a total of 4.4 million yuan, with an average of 440,000 yuan earned per cooperative or 20,000 per household. After seeing these concrete gains, villagers have become more motivated, and this year the number of cooperatives in the village has grown to 15, benefitting 520 households. "We are going to put the money from village collective land leases and from housing rentals into the cooperatives to 'generate money.' This will give the collective a stronger foundation, and we will have greater confidence." Ren said that the next step is to attract more investment and get more enterprises settled in Hongde Industrial Park. Through the development of the industrial park, more farmers can become workers, and short-term workers can become long-term workers, thereby ensuring stable employment for all residents. The village will also continue to develop poverty alleviation workshops so that more elderly people and women can be employed close to home. It is eager to develop tourism and create scenic attractions. Talking about Hongde's future, Ren is full of ideas and brimming with confidence. 

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 15, 2020)