China has long spoken of a ‘war on poverty,’ but recent signs suggest it might be even more of a focus in 2018.
This year, the “front lines” were in Sichuan province, a mountainous inland province bordering the provinces of Tibet to the west and Yunnan to the south. Xi visited members of the Yi ethnic group, where he vowed to exorcise “the evils of ignorance, backwardness and poverty.”
“To lead the people to a better life is our goal. Not a single ethnic group, family or person should be left behind,” Xi told villagers during his New Year inspection tour.
This year’s inspection tour was fairly routine. Chinese media coverage even borrowed liberally from descriptions of Xi’s trips to other impoverished villages in previous years. After all, China has been waging its “ war on poverty ” since at least Xi Jinping came to power – if not for decades. Xi’s pledge to eliminate poverty by 2020 is also not new; that’s been part of China’s definition of the goal of attaining a “moderately prosperous society” since the Hu Jintao era.
Yet there are other signs that this year’s emphasis on poverty reduction, while not unique, may bring more tangible results than in years past.
Xi’s visit to Sichuan, and the resulting emphasis on “people-centered development” and poverty reduction, is in line with a major rhetorical shift in Xi’s remarks at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017.
