The myth of China’s poverty alleviation

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long boasted of lifting 800 million people out of poverty, using this claim to justify its authoritarian rule. However, a closer look at the facts reveals that this narrative is largely a myth. In reality, the CCP's tight control over the economy and society has kept a large portion of China's population in poverty for decades.

This was painfully evident during the Great Chinese Famine from 1959-1961, which arose after the CCP nationalized rice farming. The famine claimed up to 30 million lives, although the true death toll may be even higher. It wasn't until 1978, when reformist leader Deng Xiaoping began opening up China's economy, that living standards finally started to improve. Even then, progress was slow—China did not surpass the US real GDP per capita from the year 1900 until 2010, over a century later.

Today, China's GDP per capita ranks 74th globally at $13,100, well below the US at $85,300 and even developing countries like Mexico and Malaysia. The CCP claims a poverty rate of just 0.04%, but this uses an extremely low poverty line of around $340 per year, much less than the World Bank's $1.90 per day standard. Applying a more reasonable threshold of $12,000 annually, around 40% of Chinese still live at or near poverty. By the US 1960 poverty line of $21.70 per day, a staggering 80-90% would be considered poor.

There are also huge disparities between China's urban and rural populations. City dwellers enjoy 80% higher incomes on average and dramatically better living standards, with many in the countryside still lacking basic amenities like heating, air conditioning, and flush toilets. This drives hundreds of millions of rural migrants to seek work in the cities, where they face discrimination and exclusion from public services under the hukou registration system. These workers are also the first to suffer in an economic downturn like the current one, often without unemployment benefits.

China's elderly are another group facing widespread poverty. The average Chinese pension is a meager $24 per month, with many rural and migrant retirees receiving far less or nothing at all. As China rapidly ages due to the now-abolished one-child policy, the dependency ratio of workers to pensioners is set to fall from 10:1 to 4:1 by 2030. Supporting the growing ranks of impoverished seniors will require dramatically raising taxes, lowering the living standards of working Chinese.

Seven decades after the CCP seized power, China's overall wealth is roughly equal to that of the US in 1960. The party's rule saw millions perish in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, while hundreds of millions remained mired in poverty even as its reforms transformed the country into the world's second-largest economy. The poorest communities, including migrants and rural dwellers, are always the first to suffer amid CCP crackdowns, coercive measures, and economic mismanagement.

Far from the CCP's savior narrative, the real story is that the party's control has dramatically impeded China's development and caused immense poverty and suffering. Only by gradually ceding control did it allow people to lift themselves up. Even today, the CCP continues to hold back progress for hundreds of millions of Chinese through social control, inequality, and neglect. No amount of propaganda can hide this harsh reality. The Chinese people deserve full credit for overcoming poverty, not the CCP.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long claimed victory in its fight against poverty, but these assertions are based on a deliberately low poverty threshold that obscures the true extent of deprivation in the country. As the reality of rising poverty becomes increasingly apparent, the CCP is resorting to heavy-handed "poverty alleviation" measures that ultimately amount to greater government intervention and further economic distortions.

In a bid to address the growing poverty crisis, Beijing will be forced to divert significant government revenue away from critical infrastructure projects and other development initiatives. Instead, these funds will be channeled towards increasing pension payments and social support for the poor. While such measures may provide temporary relief, they fail to address the underlying structural issues perpetuating poverty and inequality in China.

As is typical of the CCP, the government will undoubtedly tout its successes in lifting people above its own arbitrarily low poverty line. However, this narrow focus on manipulated statistics deliberately suppresses data that would reveal the true scale of poverty in the country. The CCP routinely dismisses the fact that a significant portion of the population remains poor, even if they are technically above the official poverty level.

The reality is that the average person in China experiences a significantly lower standard of living compared to those in developed countries. While China has made strides in economic development, the benefits have been unevenly distributed, with many citizens still lacking access to basic amenities, quality healthcare, and educational opportunities. The CCP's policies have exacerbated income inequality, with the urban-rural divide and the plight of migrant workers being particularly stark examples.