There is no question that China has seen a miracle of poverty reduction. According to the World Bank, since the economic reforms that started in 1978, economic growth in China has “lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty.” Chinese state media regularly reminds us that the country has about 50 million people left in poverty, particularly in rural areas, but not to worry: President Xi Jinping will completely eliminate poverty by 2020!
About all this, there are many questions:
Really? Complete elimination of poverty by 2020? How does the government define poverty, are those numbers reliable or do they understate the problem, and what would the government consider “total elimination of poverty”? How much of the poverty reduction so far was the direct result of government policy? How does China’s primary social insurance program, dibao (低保 dībǎo), actually work? How effective is it at reducing poverty? What is the difference between dibao and other targeted poverty alleviation programs? What is the relation between poverty alleviation and urbanization in China?To answer all these questions and more, Jeremy and Kaiser sat down with Gao Qin, professor of social policy and social work, and director of the China Center for Social Policy at Columbia University. She is the author of an excellent book on the subject of social assistance in China published just last year called Welfare, Work, and Poverty: Social Assistance in China, which looks at dibao and the tens of millions of people that it covers.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: The blog of Stephen Jones, an ethnographer who’s been traveling around China since the 1980s, documenting folk religion, theater, and other random things, particularly in rural life. Also see his Twitter feed @Stevejonesblog.
Qin: Life and Death in Shanghai, the autobiography of Cheng Nien, an ordinary mother whose life was dramatically impacted like so many others during the Cultural Revolution.
Kaiser: Grant, the biography of famed U.S. general and president Ulysses S. Grant, written by Ron Chernow.
Psychologist George Hu of the United Family Mental Health Network on mental health in China
The worldview of Wang Huning, the Party's leading theoretician
Bonus Episode: Introducing the China Sports Insider Podcast
It's Complicated: Getting our heads around a changing China
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How Taiwan propelled China’s economic rise, with Shelley Rigger
Can China meet its ambitious emissions targets?
How the Chinese state handles labor unrest, with Manfred Elfstrom
The benefits of engagement with China, defined: An audit of the S&ED
What's the deal with the Red New Deal?
The state of the field: U.S. China programs, with Rosie Levine and Jan Berris of the NCUSCR
The paradox of vast corruption and fast growth in China's "Gilded Age"
Harvard’s William Overholt on Esquel, cotton sanctions, and forced Uyghur labor
Historian Adam Tooze on why China’s modern history should matter to Americans
Peter Martin on ‘China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’
A conversation with Ambassador Huang Ping, consul general of the P.R.C.'s New York Consulate
Reflecting on China's poverty reduction with Bill Bikales
A data-driven dive into Chinese politics, with Stanford's Yiqing Xu
Avoiding ideological conflict with Beijing: Thomas Pepinsky and Jessica Chen Weiss
How China escaped shock therapy: Isabella Weber unpacks the debates of the 1980s
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