Armed with World Bank data that says China has contributed to more than 70% of global poverty reduction since the late 70’s, President Xi Jinping declared a complete victory against poverty and called it a miracle that will go down in history.
“Shaking off poverty is not the finish line, but the starting point of a new life and new endeavor,” Xi noted on his Feb. 25 address that his country’s $246b investment into poverty alleviation over the past eight years has helped impoverished rural residents who lived below the current poverty line in 128,000 villages.
Complete eradication of poverty in China was one of Xi’s main goals when he came to power in 2012, a time when 100m people lived in extreme poverty in remote rural areas. China has a population of around 1.4 billion.
By Milan Sime Martinic