"We learn as a global community" -- U.S. scholars expound on China's experience in poverty alleviation

by Julia Pierrepont III

LOS ANGELES -- In the midst of global challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, onerous trade tariffs and international tensions, American scholars found much to appreciate in the success of China's poverty alleviation program.

"There is nothing more important in the world in terms of global equality than poverty alleviation. In that regard, China's story of poverty alleviation is a remarkable one. They have a lot of interesting and effective approaches to how they've accomplished it," Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday.

"It's one of the greatest achievements of human history," said John Cobb, the founding president of the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. "But you'd never know it by reading an American newspaper."

Through eight years of sustained work, China has lifted its entire population of rural impoverished residents under the current income standard out of poverty, and nearly 100 million poor people have shaken off poverty. China has removed all poor counties from its poverty list, and eradicated absolute and regional poverty.

"The Chinese government, with President Xi Jinping leading the charge, has made alleviating extreme poverty a top priority for the nation. There is a national will to commit to doing it and the mobilization of extensive resources to implement it successfully," explained Kuhn.

It took the whole country to march with solidarity, so as to succeed in such a massive, unprecedented task. "This is China's monumental 'whole of society' commitment, mobilizing people of the whole country, the whole army, and the whole party toward one lofty goal," Kuhn added.

Professor Cobb told Xinhua that the Chinese government genuinely cares about lifting their people out of poverty and are committed to making it happen.

Moreover, American experts appreciate the fact that the most laudable part of China's anti-poverty program is that it's not just a short-term solution, but is sustainable.

"This success wasn't achieved by handouts," Kuhn said. He traveled the length and breadth of China to observe, verify and document the process with his U.S. colleague Adam Zhu, who had initially conceived of the idea of filming a documentary on China's poverty alleviation program.

They gained help from a young party member, who oversees the improvement of up to 200 families' livelihood. Every poor family in China had to develop their own achievable, long-term out-of-poverty plan, Kuhn said.

"That's millions of poor families with customized plans, each monitored regularly and reported centrally. When you see the depth of the system, you can see why it works," explained Kuhn, who hails China's problem-solving mindset of "giving a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for life."

Clayton Dube, director of the University of Southern California's U.S.-China Institute, also applauded China's economic development and anti-poverty efforts for providing opportunities to hundreds of millions of people to find better-paid jobs in cities and towns.

"This is a great achievement and most Chinese enjoy a better life than it was possible prior to the economic reform era," he said.

Peter Getzels, a filmmaker and director of PBS documentary "China's War on Poverty," told Xinhua that he hoped other countries can learn from China's successful poverty program.

"We learn as a global community -- the virus doesn't recognize borders and in the same vein, issues like poverty are global issues," Getzels said.

"Western countries could benefit from adapting and applying some of the effective techniques China has used in their anti-poverty program. We need to be willing to learn effective strategies from each other," he said. 

The views don't necessarily reflect those of Qiushi Journal.