AT the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18 2024, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva placed the issue of tackling rising levels of poverty and hunger at the top of the agenda. The Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty was launched to galvanise the international community to combat these serious problems facing humanity.

In recent years, the world has witnessed the largest increase in global poverty since the 1990s, with approximately 712 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022, an increase of 23 million compared to 2019. Hunger is also on the rise. Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023 — over 152 million more people than in 2019.

It is important to recognise that the global battle to end this immense human suffering is winnable, as China’s recent successes in eradicating extreme poverty clearly demonstrate.

In November 2024, I visited Hunan province in central China to learn more about how China has made poverty history and reflect on the lessons that this remarkable struggle holds for humanity.

China’s miraculous war on poverty

In February 2021, President Xi Jinping declared that China had achieved a “complete victory” in the country’s decades-long struggle to eradicate absolute poverty. China lifted more than 850 million people out of poverty in just 40 years, accounting for 70 per cent of the world’s total poverty reduction in that period.

The basis for this incredible advance in human rights is China’s historically unprecedented economic rise over the past four decades. From 1978, China transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to become the world’s largest economy today, overtaking the US in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms in 2016 or the second largest economy if measured using market exchange rates.

Between 1979 and 2018, China’s annual GDP growth averaged 9.5 per cent  — meaning that, on average, China’s economy doubled in size every eight years.

This rise has been driven by China’s dynamic socialist economic policy, the central feature of which has been massive levels of state investment geared towards industrialising the economy. It is this economic policy that has been the driving force for lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China.

The final phase of China’s fight against poverty, however, required a more targeted approach. In 2012, almost 100 million people were still living in poverty, predominantly in isolated and underdeveloped areas of rural China.

A mobilisation of the whole of Chinese society was required to achieve the goal of completely eradicating extreme poverty — and that is exactly what happened.

A closer at China’s poverty alleviation campaign in Hunan province

In November 2013, Xi visited Shibadong village in Hunan province to launch the final chapter of China’s poverty alleviation campaign. It was here that the new concept of “targeted poverty alleviation” in line with local conditions was proposed for the first time.

China’s definition of what it means to bring someone out of poverty has two dimensions. The first aspect is the question of raising a person’s income above the threshold of $2.30 per day.

The second aspect concerns a person’s living conditions, which must include the provision of the “two assurances” of food and clothing as well as the “three guarantees” of basic medical services, safe housing with drinking water and electricity and free and compulsory education for nine years.

In 2014, the number of people living below the poverty line in Hunan province was 6.8 million out of a population of around 66 million. By the end of 2020, the number of people living in absolute poverty in Hunan province had fallen to zero.

The first step in this process of “rural revitalisation” was the development of specific and realistic plans to lift each village out of poverty in a lasting and sustainable way.

In Hunan province, 21,000 poverty alleviation work teams made up of more than 600,000 people were dispatched to rural areas to consult with local people, research and come up with appropriate solutions to tackle poverty in each locality, taking into account local conditions, resources and culture.

In the case of Qingxi Village, home to around 9,500 people, the plan for achieving economic development has been unique.

Qingxi Village is the birthplace of the great Chinese writer Zhou Libo, who wrote the classic novel Great Changes in a Mountain Village, which was published in 1961. This cultural heritage has been used by Qingxi Village to develop a distinctive industry which combines rural life, literature and tourism, making the area a literary hotspot.

In order to make Qingxi Village an attractive tourist destination, the former residence of Zhou Libo has been renovated, a huge museum dedicated to Chinese literature has been built, and a number of themed “bookhouses” have been established alongside restaurants and other tourist services.

It is a hugely successful project. The village received 1.2 million tourists in 2023, generating tourism revenue of RMB 12.24 million — equivalent to £1.3 million  — and representing a 40.3 per cent year-on-year increase.

In other villages I visited, industries had been created around black tea, bamboo and other agricultural products in addition to tourism.

What was striking was the importance placed upon value-added production. Throughout the Chinese countryside, industries have been created that process raw materials into higher-value goods instead of simply extracting raw materials for export, bringing fast economic growth and development to rural China.

This development model contrasts with the model that the US has sought to impose on countries in the global South — in which raw materials, whether that is oil or lithium, are extracted and exported to international markets without any value-added production, which has the impact of stunting development in the global South.

What has underpinned this economic development of China’s rural areas has been significant state investment. This investment has been used to build infrastructure and connectivity — with a network of new roads reaching into previously extremely isolated villages, to support the creation of new industries and to provide essential local services.

In Hunan, the provincial government massively increased financial investment in poverty alleviation from 2015 to 2019. In 2015, ¥18 billion was invested, rising to a peak of ¥628bn by 2018.

Alongside this, the resources and expertise of the national government, state-owned companies, nearby cities and the local people themselves have played a crucial role in creating the economic development that has been the key to eradicating absolute poverty in Hunan province.

China’s fight against poverty and the US’s new cold war

The incredible successes of China’s anti-poverty campaign provide vital lessons for the world.

Unfortunately, the US’s new cold war offensive against China is a significant obstacle that is blocking humanity from learning from these achievements.

The multibillion-dollar smear campaigns that the US administration pushes into the mainstream Western media on a daily basis have succeeded to some extent in suppressing public discussion and concealing the truth about how China has eradicated extreme poverty.

Alongside this, the US is dedicating colossal resources to its global war drive — US military spending reached a staggering $1.5 trillion in 2022 alone — which is draining funds away from tackling shared global problems.

The global South, representing the majority of humanity, is correct to push for poverty reduction, climate action and peace to be at the top of the international agenda. Lessons from China show that, with the right global focus, approach and investment, poverty could be made history worldwide.

Fiona Edwards is a member of No Cold War Britain (www.nocoldwar.org).