President's visit set course for country's poverty fight
For decades, the mountainous township of Xiadang in Fujian province offered few opportunities for Wang Guangchao to make a decent living.
Tea plantations dotting the subtropical highlands provided the main source of income, but transporting farm produce along a rugged trail to the outside world posed a daunting challenge because of poor infrastructure.
For those living in the hillside villages in Shouning county, where Xiadang is located, it was hard to make ends meet.
Wang recalled the painstaking efforts involved in shouldering loads of tea leaves to sell, which meant visiting three different markets, only to find that prices often dropped without warning.
The villagers' dilemma was even more apparent when it came to raising pigs. Taking the larger animals for sale was virtually impossible, and every household tried to raise smaller ones.
"Life without roads was unforgiving. It was like being a frog at the bottom of a well, or a bird in a cage," Wang said.
In those days, Xiadang, nicknamed "the Siberia of Shouning", was the only township in Fujian that had no paved roads, tap water, electricity or office buildings.
But on July 19, 1989, President Xi Jinping, who was secretary of the Communist Party of China Ningde prefectural committee at the time, made his first trip to Xiadang. It took Xi, who is now general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, a three-hour journey by car and a two-hour walk in scorching summer heat along twisting mountain trails to reach the township.
During a meeting that day, Xi proposed prioritizing the building of a sealed road, a hydropower station and office building for the county government, despite the prefecture's tight budget.
The decision marked the start of a poverty reduction campaign spanning more than 30 years, during which the township's per capita income rose from less than 200 yuan in 1988 to over 13,000 yuan ($1,834 at today's rates) last year.
Xi made another two trips to the township, later that year and in 1996, when he was the deputy Party chief of the province.
Serving as Party chief of Ningde, which administers Shouning, from 1988 to 1990, Xi made poverty reduction a top priority during his tenure in the city. He worked in Fujian from 1985 to 2002.
He shares some of his thoughts in the book Up and Out of Poverty, which comprises 29 of Xi's speeches and articles from the city. It was published in July 1992.
"To fundamentally alter poverty and backwardness, the people there must engage in long-term, unremitting efforts with an entrepreneurial spirit of tenacity and dedication, like 'water droplets drilling through rock'," Xi wrote in one article.
In another, he said that focusing on agriculture in economically underdeveloped areas is a precondition to alleviating poverty, and this has fundamental significance for economic development in rural areas.
"We must eradicate the 'poverty' in our minds before we can eradicate it in the regions we govern, before we can help the people and the nation out of poverty and embark on the road to prosperity," Xi wrote.
Lin Hongzhang, deputy head of the municipal office for poverty reduction and development in Ningde, said Xi paved the way for the ensuing large-scale poverty alleviation efforts in the city.
"A crucial aspect of our experience was to make sustained efforts, just like 'water droplets drilling through rock'," he said. "Nobody else has seen the problem more thoroughly than him (Xi), and nobody proposed a better solution than him," he said.
Lin added that officials have been inspired by the blueprints drawn up by Xi in recent decades, which have been an important reason for the city's resounding success in reducing poverty.
Over the past 30 years, Ningde, which had a population of 2.9 million last year, has lifted over 774,900 people out of poverty. The number of those living below the poverty line in the city fell to 75 this year, and the poverty incidence rate was 0.01 percent, far below the national average of 1.7 percent.
Nationwide, the number of people living in poverty in rural areas fell from nearly 99 million by the end of 2012 to 16.6 million by the end of last year. A target has been set for all rural residents to be lifted out of poverty by next year.
Paving the way
Lin said Xiadang's case typifies the challenges faced by the authorities in tackling poverty.
With its enclosed, mountainous terrain and undeveloped transportation infrastructure, families faced major difficulties in finding sources of income other than farming on the slopes.
Ye Zhongqiang, Party chief of Xiadang, said that for many low-income families in the township, the challenge of breaking out of poverty lay not only with the geographical limitations they faced but also with a lack of initiative by the villagers at times.
"Some villagers did not finish primary school, and others are illiterate," he said.
An outflow of young and middle-aged workers posed another challenge, with almost 70 percent of the township's population moving to urban areas for work.
Ye said a main aspect of the official poverty alleviation efforts lies in giving the families a stable source of income, adding, "The key is to fully take advantage of the resources in the area."
In Xiadang, the solution has been to add value to what the villagers have done best over generations - grow tea.
The subtropical highlands offered soil rich in the mineral selenium and also zinc, making them ideal areas to cultivate the crop, he said.
In 2014, with help from the authorities and an initial investment of about 4 million yuan from local banks, Xiadang launched a tea cooperative and factory, and registered a brand for its product.
The cooperative united individual growers, standardized the planting process and only allowed the use of organic fertilizers and pesticides.
It came up with a new business model that offered more than 26 hectares of tea plantations to rent for companies and individuals nationwide. For 20,000 yuan, a small plot can be rented for a year to grow tea. In return, clients receive 50 kilograms of tea.
Through a network involving dozens of cameras, clients can monitor the entire tea production process on their cellphones.
"The new business model opened a window for our farmers to boost their income. It is the easiest way we have found to do this," Ye said.
The cooperative can help a tea farmer earn 6,000 yuan a year from a plot covering 0.06 hectares, up from about 1,000 yuan in previous years.
He and his mother used to live on a meager income from a tea plot of just 0.2 hectares. His mother, who has cataracts, is blind and cannot care for herself. Wang Daoquan has long been troubled by alcohol addiction, and his wife and children have left him.
"We were just getting by. It was never easy to live off a small piece of farmland," he said, adding that before 2014 he only made 2,000 yuan a year from selling tea leaves from his plot.
Unlike many of his peers who opted to leave the township for jobs in urban areas, which gave them a better income, Wang Daoquan remained to take care of his mother.
With the launch of the tea factory, he landed a job with a salary of 2,600 yuan a month, making his family one of the 118 households in the township to shake off poverty before last year.
The arrival of the new factory convinced Zhou Jianwei, a 38-year-old resident of the township, to return and work as a tea-making expert.
He said it was almost impossible previously to make a living from selling tea, adding, "The new business offered us a way to work not far from home."
The next goal
Wang Guangchao was one of six Party members who wrote a letter to President Xi on behalf of all villagers in the township, reporting on its success in tackling poverty.
Liu Minghua, another Party member who contributed to the letter, said: "We told the general secretary that Xiadang is different now. The road extends in all directions, and it is much easier to go to schools and receive medical care.
"We also assured him that the people here will continue to work toward a better life, and issued an invitation to him to come back someday."
On Aug 4, Xi replied in a letter, saying he was delighted to hear the news, and offered his congratulations to the villagers.
After 30 years of unremitting efforts, Xiadang has shifted from being almost inaccessible to being easily reached and its residents have an increasing sense of wealth and happiness, Xi said in his letter.
The experience in the township has been a vivid example of the truth in sayings such as, "A slow sparrow should make an early start" and "water droplets drilling through rock", he said.
Xi added that he hopes the villagers will forge ahead with a "persistent spirit, enhance their confidence and make sustained and arduous efforts to consolidate the outcomes of poverty reduction".
He also encouraged them to "explore a path of rural vitalization with Ningde characteristics".
For local officials, Xi's remarks provided the impetus to continue the momentum needed to alleviate poverty.
"Rural vitalization is another test left to us to answer," said Ye, the township Party chief.
Despite the fact that all impoverished families in the area have been lifted out of poverty, there is still a chance they could fall below the poverty line in the future, he said.
"Some of the families have members who are mentally ill, while others are coping with serious diseases. We cannot afford to be complacent," he said.
Ye also underscored the need to protect the environment in Xiadang, which has a forest coverage rate of 81 percent. "Poverty reduction cannot come at the cost of sacrificing the environment," he said.
Meanwhile, the township is also seeing an increase in tourist arrivals, which has diversified revenue channels for farmers.
Last year, Xiadang welcomed more than 150,000 tourists, and the number is expected to rise this year.
Wang Guangchao, like many other villagers, has taken the opportunity to open a teahouse, which is visited by dozens of customers each day. The influx of tourists has also boosted sales of tea products from his farms, he said.
Ye said he is confident that with the development of the tourism sector and improvement in infrastructure, increasing numbers of people will return to the township for work.
Lin, the official, said the authorities will further refine healthcare policies to prevent families falling below the poverty line due to illness.
He said another crucial measure is to shore up the growth of industries that can raise the incomes of poor families.
"We will continue to adopt all the measures at our disposal to bolster the incomes of poor families. Lifting them above the poverty line was only the first step. The next goal, as outlined by General Secretary Xi, is to make sure that they can live decent lives."
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