試讀：Stories aboutextravagantChinese squandering their money in foreign countries have become something of a fashion these days. One day a UK luxury brand store announced a sale. Early in the morning a group of Chinese customers arrived in a swarm, grabbed whatever they could, and made off with almost everything. In Singapore, a man was knocked down in the street by a fancy car. The story caused a considerable stir. The driver turned out to be a Chinese national who was a recent immigrant. Such people tend to be dressed from head to foot in famous brands; they fill the luggage racks on airplanes with their bulging luggage; they spit ostentatiously in the street; they bellow into their mobile phones in public. According to data released by the World Luxury Association in 2011, China was on course to replace Japan as the world’s leading consumer of luxury articles by 2012. China is a developing country, and one that used to be a land of courtesy, but now there is an impression that the Chinese are loud, profligate, and greedy. People think that with all their money they no longer need to follow common rules and courtesies, and the international community looks on with disapproval.
But this is not a true picture of Chinese people.
China’s economy is indeed growing rapidly, but the majority of people are far from wealthy. One constant topic of debate is the calculation of China’s total economic aggregate and the added value per capita. For the time being, what concerns most Chinese people is not to have themselves a huge loaf of bread, but to be sure that they can each have one or two slices.
As official figures are often contradictory, and to ordinary people statistics like the consumer price index are often inconsistent with their personal experience, such figures do not always carry much weight among the populace. But the leaders of the State are clear about their position. AsPresident Hu Jintao said, “China's total economic output is now one of the largest in the world. But on the other hand, China still lags behind more than 100 countries in terms of per capita GDP, and it remains the biggest developing country in the world. With one fifth of the world's population, and given the disparity between the urban and rural areas and among different regions and the imbalances in economic and social development, China still faces many difficulties and has a long way to go before it can achieve modernization.” This is an accurate description of China’s present situation. In formulating policies, such conditions must be the base of any decisions.
China has a population of 1.3 billion, and everyone needs food, clothing, housing and means of travel, which are all fundamental requirements. The fight against poverty has been an ongoing struggle throughout the whole process of China’s economic development and social progress.
Poverty is the common enemy of mankind. It is also a challenge facing each and every nation, as well as the international community. To promote economic development, eliminate poverty and achieve common prosperity are ideals that mankind constantly pursues. To date, China's poverty reduction program has to a large extent been limited to addressing the poverty problem in rural areas. The Chinese government’s efforts to lift people out of poverty and to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line in its own country are part of a greater contribution to mankind’s wider struggle.
There are many touching stories about the Chinese people’s fight against poverty, and ordinary folk are very often the heroes and heroines of such stories. A friend of mine serves as a government official and works day after day at a monotonous task. She and her husband make less than RMB 10,000 each month. Living in a big city like Beijing, and with a teenager to bring up, they live from hand to mouth. One day in the summer of 2011 she told me all of a sudden that she was very excited, as one of the two poor students to whom she had been giving financial help had passed the entrance examination, and would pass through Beijing on her way to the Northeast Normal University where she had enrolled. Both students live in a poor mountainous area in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, and at one time had been forced to abandon their education due to a shortage of money. For eight years, my friend had spared a little money from her meager salary to support the two kids. Unfortunately, she has never once had a chance to meet them.
There are many such stories in China. It is clear that a very large number of people make a contribution to the country’s efforts to reduce poverty. They could be anyone - government officials, or ordinary people working in public institutions, SOEs, or private companies. They might be well-off or quite poor themselves. However, they quietly do what they think right and join in the effort to eliminate poverty in China’s rural areas. I know that some entrepreneurs have contributed several hundred million Renminbi (RMB). Others do what they can, trying their best to help the poverty reduction effort.
Another friend of mine from Hunan went twice to Tibet to help develop the local economy. He left his family and spent a total of six years there. He recently completed his mission and returned to his hometown. Unfortunately he had contracted several illnesses and was in poor health. His children were unable to recognize him.
In recent years, China has done a great deal in helping the poor and eliminating poverty, and has made remarkable progress. This success could not have been achieved without the efforts of ordinary people. Over the period, China has adopted new measures such as special poverty reduction programs, poverty reduction championed by industry, and social involvement in development-oriented poverty reduction, thus making a further contribution to the international community’s effort to fight poverty. My purpose in writing this book is to give the world an accurate picture of China’s development-oriented poverty reduction program. The Chinese people are by no means rich. It is not at all true that Chinese people have wealth but lack a sense of ethics. Many Chinese people, rich or poor themselves, participate in the effort to help the poor, particularly those in rural areas.
The progress made by China in its development-oriented poverty reduction effort has also had an impact on the global poverty reduction process. According toChina’s Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals,a report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and the UN Country Team in China, China is one of the first group of countries to achieve the target set in the MDG report of halving its numbers of poor people, as measured both by the Chinese government’s own and the international poverty reduction criteria. Between 1990 and 2005, the number of people throughout the world whose per capita consumption capacity is less than one US dollar a day was reduced to 1.4 billion, i.e. a total reduction of 418 million, down by 23%.
Naturally, the Chinese people also try all sorts of ways to help reduce the proportion of the poor in other countries. According to official statistics, from 2004 to 2009, China’s foreign aid grew by 29%. By the end of 2009, China had provided an aggregate of RMB 256 billion to foreign countries, of which RMB106 billion was provided free of conditions. China has provided aid to 161 countries and more than 30 international and regional organizations. Despite the fact that the Chinese people are not rich and their average income is still low, they nevertheless fulfill their international commitments.
In writing this book, I have conducted many interviews and fact-finding trips, and collected a large number of photos and material from my fellow journalists with the approval of the media agencies they serve. I have also used public information issued by the government and news releases from news agencies. I would like to express my gratitude to those who have provided me with information. I hope my book, including those photos, will help readers to gain a better understanding of the efforts that the Chinese people have made in combating poverty, and to get to know those people who have made the greatest contributions to the fight against poverty.
