In-Depth Research | The Path to All-Around Revitalization: Bulenggou Village

On December 28th, 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping, in attendance at the Central Rural Work Conference, announced that, following the achievement of all poverty eradication targets and tasks, the CPC Central Committee had laid out a subsequent five-year transition period for counties just lifted out of poverty as part of the poverty eradication efforts. The year of 2025 marks the final year of this five-year transition period. At this historical juncture, a joint research group visited Bulenggou Village in the east of Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, to gain a deeper understanding of how and to what extent poverty alleviation was achieved in deeply impoverished villages across central and western regions, examine the state of regular assistance following the transition period, and identify emerging challenges in long-term assistance. The team also examined how villages, which have been lifted out of poverty yet remain relatively underdeveloped, can grow through all-around rural revitalization and gradually catch up in development.

I. A profound transformation from meeting basic needs to building beautiful homes

For hundreds of years, the village of Bulenggou had been known for its stark environment and barren lands. In February 2013, braving bitter cold, General Secretary Xi visited the village where he learned about the local people’s difficulties in accessing safe drinking water, convenient transportation, and adequate housing. He earnestly urged, “We must bring in clean water, build roads, and develop the new countryside well.” These simple words filled with deep compassion kindled hope and aspiration in this poverty-stricken area and heralded the critical battle against poverty in full force in China’s northwest region in the new era that began in 2012.

Restoring fragile ecosystems to safeguard the environment and income growth

Located in the western edge of the Loess Plateau, the village of Bulenggou, a mountainous area with steep slopes and crisscrossing gullies, has a forest coverage rate of less than 5%. Due to serious water and soil erosion and extremely poor ecological stability, the village represents a typical case of an ecologically fragile area. The village launched a project for ecological restoration in 2013, and since then it has completed a total of approximately 450 hectares of afforestation, including about 166.67 hectares of ecological afforestation of barren mountains, about 211.13 hectares of farmlands converted to forests and grasslands, and about 5.53 hectares of greening and beautification of the village’s environment. These restoration efforts led to the initial establishment of a multi-tiered ecological protection system. With ecological restoration underway, the village embarked on an eco-economic transformation starting in 2015. Efforts focused on developing distinctive economic forests, including pite pears, walnuts, apricots, pepper, and goji berries (wolfberries), while at the same time promoting the cultivation of sweet sorghum and other high-quality forage crops. Over the past five years, at least 1,500 yuan of villagers’ per capita disposable income has been directly derived from ecological industries. By adhering to the principle of putting equal emphasis on both ecological and economic forests, the village has improved the environment through large-scale afforestation and boosted the momentum of economic development through forest and grassland industries, thus significantly enhancing the region’s ecological stability and sustainability and establishing a virtuous cycle integrating social and economic development, improved livelihoods, and environmental enhancement. This has opened a practical path for ecologically fragile regions to promote both ecological restoration and livelihood improvement in tandem after poverty alleviation.

Top: Photo of Bulenggou Village taken on December 26, 2025. The village’s appearance and the life of its residents have undergone great changes. Bottom: The renovation underway in the deeply impoverished Bulenggou Village, 2016. INTEGRATED MEDIA CENTER OF DONGXIANG COUNTY, GANSU PROVINCE

Comprehensively upgrading infrastructure to ensure basic living standards

The village is located in the transitional region between the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the Loess Plateau, where the annual precipitation is less than 300 mm, while the evaporation rate is as high as six times that of precipitation. In such a place with the typical temperate arid and semi-arid climate, the villagers primarily relied on rainwater storage reservoirs and long-distance water transportation for their daily use. To make matters worse, the level of harmful elements in the water, such as fluorine and arsenic, far exceeded the safety standard. The harsh geographical conditions posed significant barriers impeding local development. However, since the 18th CPC National Congress held in 2012, the national strategy of targeted poverty alleviation has brought hope to the village of Bulenggou. Thanks to the 15 km water supply and distribution pipelines, every household now has access to clean tap water, which has fundamentally resolved the long-standing shortage of safe drinking water. Additionally, the difficulty in transportation has also been addressed through 22 km of paved roads of the village level. To address poor housing conditions, a relocation project was implemented. This helped villagers to move from adobe houses, where people and livestock once lived together, to pleasant new settlements at the foot of the mountain. Each household now enjoys access to natural gas, while public amenities such as cultural activity rooms, convenience stores, and the villagers’ cultural square provide essential public services. The systematic improvements in production and living conditions have laid the foundation for Bulenggou to achieve the long-term poverty-alleviation goal of sustainable prosperity.

Continuously improving the public service system to ensure the safety net for the people’s wellbeing

In 2012, the poverty headcount ratio in Bulenggou reached as high as 96%, with per capita disposable income at merely 1,624 yuan. School-age children had to cross two mountain ridges to attend school, and their dropout rate reached nearly 30%. In a word, multiple overlapping shortcomings impeded efforts to safeguard the people’s wellbeing. Today, after five years of efforts to consolidate and expand achievements in poverty alleviation, both the quantity and the quality of public services in the village have improved. A primary school and a kindergarten have been built within the village. With this development, both the compulsory education enrollment rate and retention rate have reached 100%, effectively resolving the issue of long distance and difficulty in attending school. Furthermore, the place has built a standard village-level health clinic, featuring contracted family doctor services fully covering all households. It has also achieved full coverage of inclusive policies, such as minimum subsistence allowance, basic medical insurance, and basic old-age insurance for urban and rural non-working residents. In 2024, the total amount of various social security funds received by the villagers exceeded 1.8 million yuan, accounting for more than a quarter of their disposable income. This demonstrates the substantial role of social security funds in supporting rural households’ livelihoods. With the coordinated advancement of improved material conditions on the one hand and the cultural and educational programs on the other, the villagers’ outlook has changed significantly, thereby stimulating their motivation to prosper through hard work and their internal drive for development.

Strengthening the self-help capacities of poverty-stricken villages through targeted cultivation of distinctive industries

Bulenggou Village had long suffered extreme poverty, which was not merely a one-dimensional economic deprivation, but rather a typical case of multiple overlapping dimensions of poverty. To break this complex development predicament characterized by multiple constraints, including geographical location, a weak industrial system, insufficient human resources, and a pervasive dependency mindset, the fundamental approach is to accelerate the cultivation and development of distinctive local industries. Additionally, it is also essential to speed up the cultivation and development of distinctive rural industries. In the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation strategies, the village gradually cultivated and developed a diversified and concerted industrial system for poverty alleviation, seeking to utilize its distinctive resource endowment and mitigate developmental weaknesses. Implementation of the photovoltaic program delivered immediate benefits, producing a steady annual revenue of around 200,000 yuan from electricity generation, which has been used for targeted empowerment through the creation of public welfare jobs, incentives for outstanding farmers, and a supplementary resource for village collective finance. Thus, a dual-engine model for increasing income has been formed, which is anchored by reliable photovoltaic earnings and reinforced by new employment positions. The village’s distinctive livestock farming also achieved large-scale growth. Six standard breeding farms have been built alongside the establishment of a benefit-linkage mechanism between the cooperatives and farmers. Furthermore, by leveraging local CPC heritage resources, the village has developed tourism and supported the introduction of three family-run agritainment businesses through policy guidance and the cultivation of local entities, thus converting cultural assets into engines for economic growth. Over the past decade, Bulenggou has laid an industrial foundation for its villagers to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity by cultivating distinctive local industries. This has provided villagers with a sustainable source of income growth and broken the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

In 2024, the per capita disposable income of the local residents exceeded 12,000 yuan, almost seven times the amount of a decade ago, and the incidence of poverty reduced to zero. Bulenggou has now been honored with the title of Gansu Province’s Beautiful and Harmonious Village, enjoying a clean landscape and lush tree-lined shades, as well as lively cultural activities and orderly rural governance. As the villagers say, “In the past, we would never have invited relatives over for Spring Festival, fearing they’d look down on us for being poor. But now, things have changed. Our homes are bright and pleasant, and our hearts feel just the same.” Bulenggou Village stands as a representative example of the thousands of extremely impoverished villages in central and western China that have successfully lifted out of poverty. Bulenggou has experienced an unprecedented and profound transformation, which vividly illustrates the CPC’s people-centered development philosophy and highlights the political strengths of China’s socialist system in pooling resources to launch major initiatives. This has eradicated the thousand-year-long issue of absolute poverty in deeply impoverished regions and also laid a solid foundation for advancing all-around rural revitalization and accelerating agricultural and rural modernization in areas with large ethnic minority populations.

II. New challenges facing all-around rural revitalization

With the conclusion of the five-year transition period, the context of assistance and support in poverty-alleviated regions, represented by Bulenggou Village, is undergoing profound changes. The focus of public demand in these regions is shifting from meeting the basic living needs to further improvement and development; policy orientation is shifting from concentrated support in the transition period to a focus on regular assistance; and the core tasks we face are evolving from prevention of large-scale relapse into poverty toward consolidation and expansion of the progress made in poverty alleviation, enhancement of the resilience of rural industries, activation of internal drivers for rural development, and promotion of all-around rural revitalization and transformation. Each of these shifts presents new requirements to meet. For Bulenggou Village, there is still a long and difficult way to go to enable its villagers to lead more affluent lives, achieve sustainable development, and realize all-around revitalization.

A sheep breeding farm constructed according to planning standards by the Bulenggou Village Specialized Breeding Farmers’ Cooperative, December 26, 2025. The cooperative was established in 2015. INTEGRATED MEDIA CENTER OF DONGXIANG COUNTY, GANSU PROVINCE

Fragile industrial development remains a prominent challenge

Although Bulenggou Village has established a preliminary new industrial dynamic based on livestock farming, forging a complete industrial system will be a long-term endeavor, as such development goals cannot be achieved all at once through a single short-term investment. Currently, the village has yet to build up a capacity for self-driven development. Its key issues include relatively short industrial chains, inadequate capacity for intensive and deep processing, low value-added production, and limited capability to withstand risks.

The long-term mechanism of paired assistance requires further improvement

The paired assistance partner of Bulenggou Village has been dedicated to the development of distinctive industries, such as quinoa and fresh corn planting and cattle and sheep breeding, thereby greatly promoting employment and increasing incomes. However, certain measures have yet to be fully adapted to local conditions. There remains a great deal of work to establish a long-term, market-based coordinated mechanism for paired assistance and to achieve the shift from giving aid to fostering self-reliance.

The governance of Bulenggou Village remains characterized by strong administration but weak self-governance

The governance structure of Bulenggou centers on the village Party branch and village committee, displaying a relatively high efficiency in administrative decree transmission and policy implementation. However, the villagers’ assembly remains at an early stage of development. Most of the current activities tend to focus on such basic affairs as policy briefings and the distribution of subsidies. It plays a relatively weak role in discussing and planning for major issues, such as the long-term planning of village development, utilization of collective assets, and upgrading of public services. At the same time, participation is constrained by the high rate of outward migration of working-age youth and time conflicts with farming seasons, reducing the consistency and initiative of villagers in participating in deliberation and decision-making.

III. Building on the success of poverty alleviation to advance all-around revitalization in formerly impoverished villages

The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) marks the shift from the five-year transition period of consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation achievements to a phase of regular assistance. Building on the success of poverty alleviation to advance all-around revitalization in villages that have shaken off poverty, it is imperative to maintain the overall stability of the current assistance policies and working mechanisms. On this basis, proven measures must be continued. These include the five-level responsibility system where Party secretaries at the provincial, city, county, township, and village levels are held accountable for rural revitalization, cooperation mechanisms between the eastern and western regions, targeted assistance from central departments and organizations, and the dispatch of competent first secretaries and resident work teams to villages. This will help support underdeveloped areas to continuously upgrade their infrastructure, steadily enhance public services, and foster greater internal momentum for development, thereby accelerating their progress toward common prosperity within the broader process of rural revitalization.

Upgrading industries to stimulate new momentum for rural development

Accelerating the development of distinctive industries is not only the most direct and effective method to boost development of regions that have been lifted out of poverty, but it is also a sustainable measure to strengthen their capability for self-development and help local rural residents find jobs in their hometowns. To this end, it is essential to establish a full-cycle mechanism of cultivation and encourage paired assistance partners to form stable benefit-linkage partnerships with local enterprises and jointly establish industrial alliances. This will help strengthen market competitiveness and enhance the capacity of local industries to withstand risks, thus aiding these regions in the transition from reliance on external assistance to self-sustaining development.

It is necessary to highlight the distinctive features of rural industries by thoroughly unlocking the potential of the region’s resources and prioritizing pillar industries through systematic planning, so as to avoid homogeneous competition through differentiated positioning. For example, Anji County in Zhejiang Province has tapped into its rich bamboo resources to expand beyond conventional processing. By developing diverse industrial models, such as high-end bamboo product manufacturing and bamboo-themed cultural activities, tourism, and healthcare services, it has truly shown how “a bamboo leaf can bring wealth to the people.” Another crucial task is extending the industrial chains and value chains of agricultural products and creating diversified value by deeply integrating agriculture, culture, tourism, and business. Yuanjiacun Village of Liquan County in Shaanxi Province is another example. Built around the distinctive culture of the Guanzhong Plain, the village blends agricultural production with cultural immersion, local cuisine, and leisure activities. The villagers’ role has changed from farmers to service providers, multiplying the value of local industries.

Leveraging new urbanization at the county level to promote integrated urban-rural development

As an administrative level below the city and above the village, counties serve as a bridge between urban and rural areas. Covering moderate areas and boasting strong homogeneous cultures, counties serve as a strategic starting point for promoting integrated urban-rural development. Compared to larger cities, counties enjoy the advantage of lower-cost living and housing and can thereby effectively accommodate urbanization within their own borders and become a prime destination for returning migrant workers. In recent years, the effective radius of migrant workers from Bulenggou Village has continued to shrink, and the proportion of employment within the county continues to rise. In view of this change, counties and townships should be planned in a coordinated manner, so as to promote the urban-rural integration in terms of regional planning, industrial development, public services, and ecological conservation. In doing so, it is important to leverage the role of counties in linking urban areas and serving rural communities. Efforts should be made to intensify the development of rural infrastructure and accelerate the initiative to expand express delivery services to more villages, so as to facilitate the outward flow of agricultural products and the inward distribution of industrial goods to rural areas.

Moreover, public services including healthcare, education, and eldercare should all extend to rural areas. By establishing the 15-minute rural living circle where daily essentials and public services are accessible, the rural residents’ quality of life and development rights can be ensured by enabling them to live in the countryside while working within the county. For instance, in Caoxian County, Shandong Province, thanks to a policy of supporting local farmers to achieve prosperity and encouraging grassroots entrepreneurs, an entire industrial chain of Han-style traditional Chinese clothing has been set up, incorporating innovation, design, production, and online marketing, which has attracted many young people to return home to start their own businesses. Furthermore, the rise of e-commerce has stimulated local enthusiasm. Today, over 4,000 costume and Han-style traditional clothing-related enterprises have been established around the village, with more than 52,000 online stores established and exceeding 100,000 people employed.

Relying on CPC development as the foundational guarantee to enhance the effectiveness of community-level governance

The primary-level Party organizations serve as the “the final mile” in the implementation of the Party’s policies and regulations in rural areas, constituting the fundamental force rallying the people, driving development, and fostering social harmony. It is essential to leverage the key role of Party development and optimize the structure of village Party branches and committees, thereby enhancing the capacities of primary-level Party organizations to lead rural development, serve the people, and exercise leadership in rural communities.

Practice has proven that the formerly impoverished villages that have achieved significant development and transformation almost all have a capable team of local officials. For example, in Baini Village in Leye County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the leading role of the local Party branch has been integrated into the village industrial chains, establishing a coordinated model linking the Party branch, local cooperatives, and farming households. In the village, the total planting area of sugar mandarins has increased from 66 hectares to 133 hectares, while that of fir trees increased from over 500 hectares to more than 1,300 hectares. This not only helped lift the village out of poverty, but also stands as a vivid example of how Party building drives rural development.

Unlocking farmers’ creative potential to cultivate internal driving forces for rural revitalization

Rural revitalization, in the long run, means to empower its people, stimulating the internal drive and creative potential of millions of farmers across China. It is essential to strengthen theoretical guidance, break free from the mentality of waiting for, relying on, and asking for assistance from others, and advocate a local culture that honors hard work and mutual aid. It is important to inspire villagers to embrace self-driven development and pursue prosperity through their own efforts. It is also necessary to strengthen support for farmers so that they have both the skills and channels necessary to achieve prosperity. In some villages, startup incubation funds have been set up to provide returning young people with full-cycle support, including free workspace, discount-interest loans, tax reduction, and skill training, effectively lowering the threshold and reducing the risks of starting a business. Other villages have adopted a model which combines work-relief with skills training, allowing villagers to earn income and improve their abilities by taking part in local projects, which enhances their sense of participation and fulfillment.

This article was written by Wang Jianbing, Guo Feiran, and Li Jing.

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 1, 2026)