Poverty alleviation requires constant vigilance, support

On their first visit to China, Western leaders invariably congratulate China on its successful elimination of absolute poverty. But they may not understand well that poverty alleviation is an ongoing process — for China and other countries as well — that requires constant vigilance and assessment.

China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) builds on the nation's achievements in poverty alleviation, with the strategy's focus shifting from campaigns of poverty reduction to long-term support and monitoring. The challenge is to ensure that low-income households do not relapse into poverty.

Rural development in agriculture remains a top priority, with the aim of improving farmers' incomes. Increased productivity and more efficient logistics mean farmers can access broader and more competitive markets that offer better prices. The progress from poverty to reasonable prosperity rests on enabling infrastructure and research.

Key focus areas include strengthening high-quality development and technological self-reliance. Continued enhancement of healthcare and social services and increased access to senior high school education all align with the 2035 target of achieving "basic socialist modernization" and the prosperity that goes with it.

Although Western leaders admire China's poverty reduction programs, they fail to emulate them. This failure can be traced to differences in the way that China and some in the West think about poverty and its causes.

Modern rich Western nations prefer to describe poverty in terms of homelessness or disadvantage. This language hides and changes the way Western countries approach poverty alleviation.

If you pretend not to see poverty because it is classed as something different, then you do not need to act with urgency. But the reality is undeniable.

Walk the streets of the central business districts of Sydney or Melbourne, Australia, and you have to step around homeless beggars sleeping on the streets. In the countryside, they huddle in rough camps on the edge of towns. There are around 3.7 million people, or 15 percent of Australia's population, counted as living in poverty, according to a report co-authored by the Australian Council of Social Service and the University of New South Wales Sydney.

In the advanced economy of the United States, the figure is around 37 million, or 11 percent of the population, who live in poverty, according to the US Census Bureau. The percentage is much larger in the UK, where 13.4 million, or 20 percent of the population, are counted as living in poverty, according to UK government figures.

Western countries believe that poverty is the result of personal deficiencies and is not caused by structural economic problems. These unspoken beliefs are often reflected in the abusive language used to describe the poor as lazy, unintelligent or useless deadbeats.

In England, the Victorian era promoted the idea that idleness was a sin and that the workhouse or poorhouse — a place maintained at public expense to house needy people — was the solution for the lazy poor. These are ideas common to Western thinking about the foundation and causes of poverty.

Disgusted by the forced labor of industrializing Britain, German economist and philosopher Karl Marx took a different approach with his insightful analysis of social conditions: The workhouse was not a triumph of morality. It was a feature of an exploitative economic system that required a reserve of poverty-stricken workers to ensure that wages were kept low.

China treats poverty as a function of the economic system, so it has structured the system toward common prosperity and social good.

These are not abstract philosophical differences for academic debate. They are today's drivers of Chinese policy as shown in the details of the 15th Five-Year Plan.

China attacks the structural economic issues that create poverty. Western countries seem comfortable in accepting the assertion that the poor will always be with us, and so they see this as a moral problem and not an economic one.

When poverty is the result of a lack of economic opportunity, then the solution to poverty alleviation is to create the conditions necessary for economic opportunity.

Solutions require equal access to physical infrastructure and to modern digital infrastructure. Digital banking services in China like WeChat Pay and Alipay help expand inclusive financial access, as they generate financial records that can be used for loan assessments. Access rests on the rollout of reliable digital infrastructure.

China's focus is on using new quality productive forces to enable people to stay out of poverty by enabling and supporting economic opportunities.

Past success in tackling poverty means there is a genuine belief that life will improve, and that poverty will become just a memory on the path to a moderately prosperous society. Continued success is an ongoing process.

The author is an international financial technical analyst and a former national board member at the Australia China Business Council.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.