Kunming, May 29 (Xinhua/GNA) – High in the Wumeng Mountains of southwest China, solar panels now glint where history was made.
The rugged hills there formed a harsh living environment that had trapped local residents in poverty for centuries. Now locals are pursuing modern economic revitalization after winning a historic battle against poverty under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For farmers like Yang Ligao in Huize, Yunnan Province, the panels — installed during Xi’s poverty alleviation campaign from 2012 to 2020 — have converted abundant sunlight into a steady stream of revenue. He now earns a nice wage for the upkeep of the power panels.
Yet, as much as he cherishes the extra income, what truly delights this farmer is the change taking place beneath the glass. “The runoff from cleaning the panels and the shade made all the difference,” he said. “The grass grows so much better now. Before, this mountain could barely sustain anything worthwhile.”
Yang is just one face in a massive historic transformation. The eight-year campaign led by Xi lifted nearly 100 million rural residents above the national poverty line, eradicating absolute poverty that had plagued the nation for millennia.
The next horizon for the roughly 450 million people in the countryside, according to Xi’s blueprint, is all-around revitalization. Yet he is clear-eyed about how slippery poverty could be.
“The most difficult part of a victory is not winning it, but rather sustaining it,” he has cautioned. To ensure households like Yang’s do not slide back through the cracks, he designated 2021-2025 as a transition period, keeping key support measures largely stable.
During this period, regions that have recently been lifted out of poverty established systems to identify risks of relapse, provided tailored assistance for individual households, and bolstered industries and employment to boost local economies.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita disposable income in these economically vulnerable regions has grown faster than the national rural average, reaching 18,627 yuan (around 2,727 U.S. dollars) in 2025.
China’s hard-won gains have resonated beyond its borders. In his message to the 2026 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored the urgency of fighting poverty, noting that it affects people in every corner of the world.
“Meetings like yours give me hope that solutions are in reach,” he said.
GUARDING AGAINST RELAPSE
Poverty alleviation has long been a priority for the Communist Party of China (CPC). For Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, it also carries a deeply personal significance.
In the late 1960s, he was sent to the harsh Loess Plateau in northwest China in his teens. There, he labored alongside villagers for seven years, tending crops, herding sheep, and hauling coal. He once said, “I came from a deeply entrenched pocket of poverty.”
Far from hardening him against the challenges of rural life, the barren, gully-scarred landscape instilled in him a steadfast connection with farmers and an enduring commitment to making a meaningful impact on the community.
This may help explain why, even after China declared victory over absolute poverty, Xi has continued to keep a close watch on the lives of those once left behind.
When the five-year transition period for formerly impoverished regions drew to a close, he visited Guizhou and Yunnan in March 2025. Straddling the rugged Wumeng Mountains, these provinces were once home to some of the nation’s most entrenched poverty.
Xi emphasized that the safety net for vulnerable groups must be impregnable. “There must be no large-scale occurrence of poverty or relapse into poverty.”
That message soon found policy backing. China’s first major policy statement of 2026 — often seen as a signal of the country’s priorities — laid out systematic measures for regular, targeted assistance to vulnerable populations.
The Ministry of Finance allocated 177 billion yuan in 2026 to fund this initiative, focusing on industries and employment, which matches the scale of the previous year.
This signals a general continuation of policies following the transition period, said Zhang Bin, a research fellow with a consultancy under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Specifically, he noted efforts to help people in need to build up their own capacity for development, maintain a robust social safety net, and adopt a stratified approach to support underdeveloped regions.
A PRESENCE TO STAY
Instead of relying heavily on long-term international aid for poverty reduction, China turned to its own strength, mobilizing domestic policies, resources, and manpower to drive its anti-poverty campaign.
As part of this eight-year effort against extreme poverty, more than three million officials were dispatched to impoverished villages across the country.
During his visit to a Dong ethnic village in Guizhou in March 2025, Xi stressed the need to continue with the program, recognizing that sustainable revitalization necessitates a long-term commitment.
Such teams include civil servants, judges, corporate executives, and military veterans. A core task for them is to help communities find their strengths, build industries, and grow their incomes.
This approach reflects a central tenet of Xi’s philosophy: sustainable escape from destitution comes through self-reliance.
“Simply handing out red envelopes (of cash) to farmers isn’t assistance; it’s relief,” he noted, drawing a sharp line against creating a “welfare trap.”
Tailoring industries to local conditions has been a signature strategy of Xi, both during the historic battle against poverty and in the current push for rural revitalization.
Xi has often offered advice during his inspection tours. For example, he encouraged the use of marine resources in east China’s Fujian Province and supported the Luosifen noodle industry in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
In Huize, beyond the photovoltaic sector, locals have turned to strawberry farming. The region’s low-latitude, high-altitude climate and abundant sunshine provide ideal conditions for the fruit, prompting a shift away from low-value staples like highland barley and buckwheat.
But village officials do more than just planning. In Dangjiangzhou, a village in central China’s Hunan Province, Ma Xiaoyan, an official from a provincial energy group, brought in baking experts. Together with local youth, they fused fresh local vegetables with traditional wood-fired kiln techniques to create a signature line of vegetable breads.
This creates what economists call a “pro-poor market” — one in which government, businesses and society work together to expand opportunities for disadvantaged communities.
Today, graduates, technicians and entrepreneurs are increasingly returning to rural areas. Between 2021 and 2025, all 832 formerly impoverished counties developed two to three competitive industries, laying the groundwork for more sustainable growth.
Still, economic engines require guardrails. As these industries took root, policymakers have built a nationwide monitoring and assistance system that reaches down to the village level, with data flowing across agencies.
Drawing on China’s sophisticated data capabilities, the system works in complement with self-reporting mechanisms and door-to-door visits by local officials to identify vulnerable households before hardship deepens.
Liao Yubing, a villager in Hunan, experienced this firsthand. When a type of upper throat cancer left him hospitalized in October and his family’s income plunged, the system flagged the unusually high medical costs and alerted local authorities before he even sought help.
“I felt reassured enough to focus on my treatment,” Liao said.
CLOSE URBAN-RURAL DIVIDE
For Xi, China’s modernization is incomplete if agriculture and the countryside are left behind. His vision is clear: There should be a strong agriculture and a beautiful countryside, and the farmers should lead prosperous lives.
This vision was on full display during his tour of south China’s Guangdong Province in November. While inspecting the local pomelo industry, Xi encouraged developing tech-driven agriculture and its integration with culture and tourism so as to put more money in farmers’ pockets.
The province is a tale of two economies: its busy central and southern cities are global tech hubs, home to giants such as Huawei and BYD, while the eastern, western, and northern parts combined account for less than a fifth of the provincial GDP. It is a sharp contrast that mirrors the regional divide seen across the entire country.
Xi pressed local officials to close these urban-rural and regional gaps. As China races toward its goal of basically achieving modernization by 2035 and moves toward common prosperity for 1.4 billion people, bridging this divide has become a pressing challenge.
Charting the path forward, China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) pledges to promote integrated urban-rural development and foster county industries that benefit local communities.
The blueprint also emphasizes improving rural infrastructure, public services and living environments, while promoting urbanization centered on county seats.
Championing the original charm of villages in integrated urban-rural development, Xi has called for a gentle touch: cut trees with caution, fill no lakes, and avoid building demolition as much as possible. “We need to preserve pleasant rural landscapes for the people.”
During the annual session of China’s top legislature in March, an official from a once-destitute village in east China’s Jiangsu Province told Xi that villagers’ incomes had risen and that community life had become more vibrant, with growing participation in local sports and cultural activities.
Xi welcomed the changes. “Rising incomes alone are not enough,” he said, stressing that rural communities should also enjoy good education, healthier social customs, and a richer cultural life.
China’s efforts to promote rural development are beginning to bear fruit. During this year’s harvest season in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, golden wheat fields stretched toward the modern skyline as high-speed trains flashed across the horizon beyond the harvesters.
On overseas social media platforms, “China Travel” is trading city walks for country hikes, with industry data showing that inbound bookings for rural getaways surged more than 50 percent year-on-year in 2025.
As Xi put it, “Rural revitalization holds immense untapped potential and opens up vast opportunities.”
GNA/Xinhua