Since the late 1970s, more than 800 million Chinese have worked their way out of poverty. China’s achievement is unprecedented in human history. It’s managed to reduce global poverty more than any other country. How did this happen in such a short amount of time?
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Since 2015, the World Bank has defined extreme poverty as people living on less than $2 a day. In 1981, about 88% of the Chinese population lived in extreme poverty. Today, its extreme poverty rate is below 1%.
Yuen Yuen Ang/Author
How did this happen in just a generation? This week on Full Frame, we talk with Author and Political Science Professor Yuen Yuen Ang, who studies China and wrote the book How China Escaped the Poverty Trap.
China’s ambitious plan
Nearly 100 years ago, the People’s Republic of China was founded with the commitment of a ‘moderately prosperous society’. While China’s extreme poverty rate has fallen below 1% that still leaves about 30 million Chinese living in poverty. Now, President Xi Jinping has an ambitious plan: eradicate extreme poverty by 2020.
Poverty alleviation with Yuen Yuen Ang
The right polices, at the right time in the right place all helped China lift more than 800 million people out of poverty. But, is it a model that other developing countries could use to do the same? Can there be a so-called ‘cookie-cutter’ approach to solving poverty?
Author and Political Science Professor Yuen Yuen Ang discusses this questions.