Xi asserted that this meant the Communist Party had achieved its “first centenary goal” of creating a “moderately prosperous society” by 2021.
The Chinese state-run publication Global Times branded Xi’s declaration that poverty no longer existed in the country a “great miracle in the human history of poverty reduction.”
“Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty. All the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list,” Xinhua claimed, asserting “770 million impoverished rural residents have shaken off poverty when calculated in accordance with China’s current poverty line” since the 1970s.
The 832 “impoverished counties” were also allegedly removed from Communist Party statistics in November, when Xi first declared the war on poverty was over. At the time, the Wall Street Journal, questioning the announcement, noted, “a report this year from former World Bank officials said that if a uniform standard of $5.50 a day in income, or around $2,000 a year, were applied, some 373 million or about 27% of the population would be considered in poverty.”
The Chinese government’s metrics differ from many standard world metrics on measuring poverty, such as the one World Bank uses.
Xi’s modest boast of a “good” harvest contrasted significantly with his more exuberant celebrations of the Chinese economy but was nonetheless a notable comment given the extensive destruction of Chinese crops through flooding in 2020. Flooding affected 27 of 31 provinces at the peak of the rains and affected over 38 million people. To protect larger structures, particularly the prodigious Three Gorges Dam, Chinese villagers accused the government of deliberately flooding their communities, opening streams into communities to relieve water pressure.
Chinese officials repeatedly denied that the destruction of farmland had affected the nation’s food supply, even as Xi Jinping announced a nationwide campaign to urge people to eat less. The “Clean Plate” campaign, which remains in vigor, is allegedly a response to growing food waste at celebratory events and on social media videos showing people, often thin women, eating large amounts of food for entertainment. The resulting laws from the “Clean Plate” campaign spanned far more than regulating online content, however, imposing limits on how much individuals can eat at large events like weddings and regulating restaurant portions.
“The initiative initially sparked speculation by some media over whether China is in a food crisis,” the Global Times noted last year, refusing to affirm that this was a factor. “Experts say the world indeed faces a food shortage, but for China, the real threat to food security comes more from food wastage than epidemic or floods.”
This week, the Chinese Agriculture Ministry published a future plan to secure national grain supplies. At a press conference announcing the plan, Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian “stressed that the country’s grain supply at times comes under pressure, saying that domestic demand of grain will continue to rise in the long run due to population growth,” according to state media.
