"We villagers now can drink clean tap water as urban residents
do," said Zhao Caihong, with a broad smile on her face. "We used to
fetch water from rivers, which were often contaminated with the
livestock's excrement and urine." Zhao is also happy and contented
that her family moved last year from a old shanty into a big new
one, benefiting from a government-funded house renovation
project.
Zhao and some 250 other families live in a outlying mountain
village called Shangping, in Xihaigu region, the poorest part of
northwest China's underdeveloped Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
One year ago, much like so many other poverty-stricken villages
in the country, it still suffered from low family incomes, poor
transportation conditions and a shortage of clean drinking
water,
However, things have begun changing as the government focuses
more on vast rural areas.
Wang Dianzhong, head of the village committee, said that last
year alone the government poured 1.2 million yuan (US$150.000) to
improve its infrastructure and to train and encourage villagers to
find jobs in cities.
The village used part of the funds to built a new sand road,
which winds through surrounding mountains to the outside world.
Families having televisions can watch eight channels of programs
since microwave antenna were installed at their homes.
Shangping, like other outlying, poor villages nationwide, is
beginning to share the outcome of China's galloping growth as China
focuses more on rural areas by adopting a "new socialist
countryside" strategy.
Chinese government leaders depict a new socialist countryside as
having higher productivity, improved livelihood, higher-degree
civilization with greater socialist ethics, tidy appearance and
democratic management in the 11th Five-Year?Guidelines
(2006-2010) period, showing the resolve of the Chinese top
leadership to spread the fruits of reform to its rural areas,
especially poor places like Shangping.
The central government allocated 13 billion yuan (US$ 1.6
billion) last year to its poverty reduction program, 13 times that
in 1980 and 37.2 percent of which was poured into the autonomous
regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Guangxi and Tibet,
and provinces with large ethnic populations, such as Guizhou,
Yunnan and Qinghai.
After more than 25 years of economic reform, the poverty rate in
rural areas has dropped to less than 3 percent. Nevertheless, China
still has a huge number of needy people due to its big
population.
China also has 26.1 million people who live in dire need and who
it is believed will be "the hardest nut to crack" during the
poverty reduction program.
The Chinese government has turned more attention on its rural
poor by reducing various taxes and promoting free compulsory
education.
The agricultural tax, which has had a history of 2600 years, was
rescinded completely this year and an increasing number of children
in rural areas gained access to free compulsory education.
Meanwhile, the country began to lower the price of medical services
by instituting a rural cooperative medical service system.
Wang Guoliang, deputy director of the Office of Poverty Relief
under the State Council, or the central government, said poverty
alleviation through development must go hand in hand with building
a new harmonious and civilized countryside.
In the future, China would continue to relieve poverty in the
model of "develop the whole village together", which means taking
one poor village as a unit and tackling the problems one by one,
and ensuring that the allocated money is really spent on the needy,
he said.
Under this model, the net income of peasant farmers in Xihaigu
region has registered an average yearly growth rate of 14.17
percent during the past five years, with the income rising from
987.4 yuan (US$122.7) to 1,687 yuan (US$210).
The portion of the population living in abject poverty has been
slashed from 527,000 in 2000 to 152,000 in 2004.
"We pledge to invest more on easing poverty in Xihaigu region,"
said Ma Qizhi, chairman of the Ningxia Hui autonomous regional
government.
(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2006)