by Qian Shanming, Dou Hongyu, CGTN Radio
“No one should be left behind on the path to a moderately prosperous society”
It was getting close to the Spring Festival in 2018. The Daliang Mountains of Sichuan Province in southwest China were blanketed by snowfall. Trees high up on the slopes sparkled with icy frost in the freezing air. Deep in the heart of the mountain range is the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, home of the Yi ethnic group.
For decades, the region had struggled with grinding poverty due to its rough terrain and harsh natural environment. Sanhe Village, often called a “cliff village”, perched at an altitude of 2,500 meters. Many homes in the village were built against the mountain side with doors facing the edge of a cliff. For decades, people relied on “sky ladders” made of rattan and wooden sticks to climb in and out of the village. The sheer danger of it stopped many villagers from leaving home for two to three years at a stretch.
As of 2018, however, Sanhe Village had experienced great changes with the support from targeted poverty alleviation policies, and people in the region gradually worked their way out of impoverishment.
In the courtyard of a local Yi ethnic family, house owner Jihaoyeqiu said, “We’ll be out of poverty soon,” his voice filled with hope. With poverty alleviation support in place, his family had purchased two cows and a sow, planted potatoes and Sichuan pepper, and supplemented their income by doing small jobs. As a result, the annual income of the family had exceeded 20,000 yuan, or nearly 3,200 U.S. dollars. At the time, Jihaoyeqiu was also preparing to join fellow villagers in a relocation program that would allow each household to move into a new 100-square-meter apartment at a modest cost of 10,000 yuan, only about half of the annual income of Jihaoyeqiu’s family.
Two years later in 2020, 84 households from the cliff village in the Daliang Mountains moved into new houses in a county 60 kilometers away. Some villagers found work in rural tourism leveraging local resources, others found employment in the city after training. Rattan ladders and zip lines are no longer needed, replaced by sturdy staircases and well-paved roads. The sounds of children herding cattle in the mountains were replaced by cheerful reading in classrooms. Liangshan, the once poverty-stricken region that had struggled in hardship for thousands of years, declared its historic farewell to absolute poverty.
A batch of 31 households from a cliff village in the Daliang Mountains moved into new houses in a county nearby on May 13th, 2020. [Photo: CFP]
“Poverty comes in many forms, and challenges can be diverse.” That’s why targeted efforts became the key to effective poverty alleviation.
Over the years, China has explored a slew of targeted and scientific alleviation measures in different regions of the country, such as relocating the poor, compensating farmers in ecologically fragile areas, encouraging education and developing business, and also reducing poverty through e-commerce, tourism, and etc. The government also motivated businesses, individuals, NGOs to carry out relief plans. Wealthier provinces were assigned at least one less-developed province, providing it with special guidance and assistance.
Through continuous efforts, China had lifted the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents out of absolute poverty by 2020.
“Promoting fresh development with new growth drivers”
In June 2022, the “Baiye No. 1” tea plantation in Guizhou Province in southwest China was soaking up the summer sun. An outdoor LED screen displayed real-time data on the local temperature, humidity, and soil conditions. With dozens of digital devices connected by 5G network, tea planters could easily check the growth of tea leaves using a mobile app, and to estimate how much tea to pick the next day, making tea garden management much more efficient and convenient.
Guizhou used to be known as a remote and impoverished province, but that impression has changed since digital economy took roots. Now, China’s first big data pilot zone has been established in Guizhou Province, giving a great boost to the local economy.
An exhibition hall showcases digital solutions at the Guizhou Big Data Exhibition Center on July 11th, 2021. Photo: [Photo: CFP]
Strategic planning is paramount in economic development. Since 2012, China has elevated the development of the digital economy to a national-level strategy. The focus has been on integrating the internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and the real economy, and also on establishing internationally competitive digital industry clusters. It is against this backdrop that Guizhou seized the opportunity and initiated its digital transformation, paving a unique and tailored path of development.
Located in the heart of southwest China, Guizhou Province has the advantage of having a stable geological structure with minimal susceptibility to earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters. Its cool climate and low electricity costs are all favorable conditions for new digital infrastructure. In 2014, Guizhou officially launched its big data development initiative and quickly emerged as the fastest-growing province in the big data sector. Since then, industrial digitization has been driving the upgrade of traditional sectors in the province, which has accelerated new economic growth and changed the production and lifestyles of the local people.
In the big data demonstration center in Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou Province, LED screens are displaying innovative cases of integrating big data with industries such as agriculture and services, and the application of big data in rescue operations, food safety, online healthcare, and etc. Some local health big data companies had enlisted thousands of top-tier doctors to provide online diagnostic and treatment services to local communities, including those in remote mountainous areas.
“New drivers for new growth.” Guizhou, once a major poverty-stricken province, successfully eradicated absolute poverty by accelerating digital industrialization. Today, the digital economy is seen everywhere in the province, from tea gardens in mountainous areas to cutting-edge enterprises in equipment manufacturing, generating new momentum for innovative development. By 2023, the digital economy accounted for over 40% of Guizhou’s GDP, maintaining one of the fastest growth rates in the country.
“Expanding opening-up to boost development”
At the Guoyuan Port in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, the Yangtze River sparkled in the sun and railway tracks stretched beyond the horizon carrying trains of China Railway Express. The docks were abuzz with the orderly processing of containers.
Before 2016, Guoyuan Port was merely an ordinary inland domestic trade port, with majority of goods being coal, steel, and the like. With national planning and policy support, the port has been transformed into an important port-type national logistics hub, well famed for both international and domestic trade, where the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the China-Europe Railway Express, and the Yangtze River Waterway are all interconnected.
A freight train on China Railway Express departs from Chongqing on March 19th, 2021, bound for Duisburg, Germany. [Photo: CFP]
The China-Europe Railway Express passes through Guoyuan Port, loaded with coffee beans from Yunnan Province, and heads west through the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang, then goes through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Poland, before arriving at Duisburg. The journey takes about 14 days, one-third of the time required for traditional maritime exports from provinces in western China like Yunnan. Statistics show that in the five years between 2019 to 2024, a total of 35,000 China-Europe freight trains have traveled through China’s western region, accounting for more than half of the national total.
The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor passes through the Guoyuan Port, through which over 1,100 types of goods can reach more than 500 ports in over 120 countries and regions worldwide. The trade corridor has accelerated the global reach of “Made in Western China” products, while bringing commodities from around the world to the vast markets of western China. It has also been serving as a southbound trade route that enhances connectivity between the western part of China and the ASEAN region, further expanding China’s opening-up to the world. Statistics show that in 2023, the total import and export volume of China’s western region reached 3.7 trillion yuan, or over 510 billion U.S. dollars, marking a 37% increase from 2019.
In China’s western region, a dynamic pattern of opening-up has been forming, characterized by land and sea interconnection, with dozens of pilot trade zones and comprehensive bonded zones being established, which has been enhancing connection with domestic and global markets, fostering a higher level of openness and injecting new vitality into high-quality development of the entire country.
China’s economy has transitioned from a phase of high-speed growth to one focused on high-quality development, featuring innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared growth that will meet people’s aspiration for a better life. On its path to modernization, China vows to keep stimulating new drivers of high-quality development to make the “cake” bigger, while also to find ways to share the “cake” fairly and reasonably. The benefits of China’s development are not only shared among its own people but also with people from around the world.
