Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Xi Jinping is determined to end all poverty
in China by 2020. Can he do it?
It was October seven decades ago when the Communist
Party of China, CPC, established the People’s Republic of China after decades
of civil war and Japan’s intrusion. The main force of the party was poor
farmers in rural areas. While lasting peace and steady economic growth should have
been the priorities, then party chairman and the absolute leader, Mao Zedong, lead
a social and economic campaign called the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to
rapidly transform the still war-torn country into a socialist society by
drastic industrialization and collectivization, which resulted in drastic
decline in food output and great famine instead. Then, another social and sociopolitical
movement, called the Cultural Revolution was initiated by the same leader from
1966 until his death in 1976. Both of the politically-motivated initiatives brought
nothing but economic devastation and deaths of millions of people. It had taken
nearly three decades since its independence before the party finally initiated economic
reform led by Deng Xiaoping at the end of 1978. Only in the first three decades,
coastal regions, state-owned enterprises, and exporting industries grew rapidly
and became the second largest economy in the world around 2008. And the last
decade, astronomical numbers of private enterprises emerged, massive
rural-to-urban migration occurred, and the world’s largest middle-class was formed.
Now the party leader Xi Jinping wants the rest of the people in rural areas to get
out of poverty and has initiated a strong campaign in both central and local
party and government leaders.
Enjoy reading the article and learn about this
new social and economic movement in modern China.
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