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  • China claims it's eliminated poverty?

  • But is that really true?


  • Or is it just an excuse for propaganda?

  • Welcome to China Uncensored.

  • I'm Chris Chappell.

  • Good news everyone!

  • The Chinese Communist Party has defeated poverty.

  • President Xi Jinping has declared a complete victory over extreme poverty on Thursday at

  • a national conference in Beijing

  • Now you might be wondering, did the Communist Party really achieve a complete victory over

  • extreme poverty?

  • And the answer is, of course they did!

  • This is the country that meets every one of their yearly GDP growth targets, no matter

  • how much they have to fudge the numbers.

  • And so the Chinese Communist Party has achieved complete victory over extreme poverty, by

  • inventing their own definition of extreme poverty

  • I'll explain more in a bit

  • But don't focus too much on that part.

  • The important thing is that China has lifted people out of poverty.

  • During his speech, President Xi highlighted some of the achievements in this area since

  • the country's Reform and Opening Up began more than 40 years ago.

  • He said that during this time China has lifted more than three quarters of a billion out

  • of poverty.

  • This includes about 100 million people since 2012. 

  • We've talked before about how the Chinese Communist Party uses the phraselifted

  • millions out of povertyas propaganda.

  • They want you to think of the Communist Party as a giant benevolent hand, gently lifting

  • hundreds of millions of people from poverty

  • I talked about why that is essentially a lie in this episode.

  • Basically, the Communist Party was responsible for putting a lot of people in poverty in

  • the first place, and it was really the Chinese people who lifted themselves out of poverty

  • once the Party loosened their complete control over the economy.

  • But as this NPR article points out, Chinese propaganda outlets don't use the phrase

  • lifted out of povertyin Chinese like they do in English.

  • While China's largest state-run news organizations routinely boast about China lifting its people

  • out of poverty in their English-language editions, these same news organizations avoid the term

  • in their native language.”

  • Solifting people out of povertyis a phrase that's almost exclusively used

  • to trick gullible foreigners.

  • Just like “I'm an art student, come see my gallery.”

  • OrBe a man, eat this scorpion on a stick.”

  • Mmmm.

  • Crunchy.

  • And very manly.

  • And now the Communist Party is pushing truly over-the-top propaganda, like by declaring

  • thatThe problem of absolute poverty that has plagued us for thousands of years has

  • come to an end.”

  • But many Western media outlets are actually skeptical for once.

  • The Washington Post points out thatNeither Xi nor state media explained how the figures

  • were calculated and what threshold was used, prompting questions about the metrics.”

  • The Chinese regime has previously defined extreme poverty as those living below $2.30

  • a day.

  • But the BBC points out that the World Bank counts China as an upper-middle-income country.

  • And according to the World Bank, that means the poverty line should be more than double

  • that at $5.50 a day.

  • Meanwhile AFP tried to talk to some of the villagers who were affected by the poverty

  • alleviation drive, and got followed around by authorities.

  • And at one interview, Chinese police showed up toobserve.”

  • So clearly everything is great

  • Chinese leader Xi Jinping first announced this poverty alleviation campaign back in

  • 2015, with a goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2020.

  • Which of course meant that the Party was definitely going to eradicate extreme poverty by 2020. 

  • Even if they had to do it by literally erasing extreme poverty from the dictionary

  • The poverty alleviation campaign is an example of how the Chinese Communist Party governs

  • through mass political campaigns

  • This one isn't as destructive of a mass campaign as the Cultural Revolution.

  • And it's not as funny as Xi Jinping's Toilet Revolution.

  • But whenever the Party launches one of these campaigns, everyone has to get on board.

  • And I mean EVERYONEfrom the central government down to local governments, the propaganda

  • organs, the education system, even supposedly private Chinese companies like Alibaba.

  • According to official figures, the Communist Party has spent almost 250 billion dollars

  • on this poverty alleviation campaign.

  • So did it work?

  • I'll tell you more after the break.

  • Welcome back.

  • Has the Chinese Communist Party's massive and very expensive poverty alleviation campaign

  • actually worked?

  • Well, it's hard to tell because all of the information we get about this is from the

  • Chinese regime.

  • It's like trying to figure out how many people in China actually got the coronavirus.

  • You know the number the authorities are giving you isn't real, but there's no way to

  • figure out the true number.  

  • There's no denying that poverty alleviation has helped people.

  • Foreign Affairs looked at one village where the local government gave grants and loans

  • to villagers to build new houses.

  • And families also got money from the government to raise their income to the poverty line.

  • And as part of the massive propaganda campaign, Chinese state-run media have heavily featured

  • personal stories of individuals who have benefited from poverty alleviation.

  • One example is a farmer named Dong Heqin, who spent all of his life savings caring for

  • his sick son.

  • In 2015, directed by local officials charged with anti-poverty work, Dong began planting

  • chili peppers on his land.

  • He now earns more than...93,000 dollars from his crop annually.”

  • As the China Media Project points out, Dong has been featured in state-run media as a

  • poverty alleviation success story since 2018. 

  • A typical example is this video from last year, that shows Dong studiously flipping

  • through state-run newspapers, harvesting his peppers inside a giant greenhouse, and even

  • pointing to a propaganda billboard featuring his own story he keeps inside his greenhouse

  • for some reason.

  • But after Dong hit the spotlight, some Chinese netizens pointed out some holes in his story.

  • In a now-deleted WeChat article, a netizen brought up some questions, like, how did Dong

  • get almost 50 times the average amount of land that Chinese farmers have

  • How did he get nearly 400 thousand dollars to build greenhouses on all of his land?

  • And is he really making as much money from his crops as he's claiming?

  • Considering how much land he has and how many peppers he could grow, “Dong could expect,

  • at the high end, an annual turnover of about 250,000 yuan.

  • This is less than 40 percent of what Dong has claimed in report after report.”

  • So even these heartwarming poverty alleviation stories aren't what they seem

  • And there's a darker side to the poverty alleviation campaign, too.

  • That's when the Party decides to help you, whether you want it to or not.

  • Like when local authorities force villagers out of their ancestral homes, and into apartment

  • buildings.

  • In some cases villagers have ended up effectively homeless.

  • There are also of course huge issues with corruption.

  • According to official statistics, from 2016 to 2018 there were 200,000 cases of poverty

  • alleviation related corruption.

  • Mostly from people embezzling funds.

  • And then there's how the poverty alleviation campaign has affected China's ethnic minorities.

  • The Communist Party loves to trot out their happy ethnic minorities for propaganda.

  • Like celebrating poverty alleviation by having them sing about how without the Chinese Communist

  • Party there would be no new China.

  • Or boasting about how poverty is being eliminated in Tibet.

  • And Xinjiang.

  • You can't be a poor person if you're in a concentration camp.

  • I mean, you can still be poorbut they don't consider you a person.

  • The truth is that the Party is destroying minorities' way of life by uprooting entire

  • villages.

  • And in regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, it's even worse

  • Poverty alleviation is one of the excuses the Party uses for sending Uyghurs across

  • China as forced slave labor.

  • And in Tibet, poverty alleviation programs are actually impoverishing Tibetan nomads.

  • As well as being a great excuse for getting Party members to stay in Tibetans' homes

  • for weeks to monitor and control their thoughts and activities.

  • But nevermind all that.

  • Because what's really important about this poverty alleviation campaign is what's in

  • it for the Chinese Communist Party

  • And I'll get to that after the break.

  • Welcome back.

  • Like I said earlier, the Party's propaganda machine has been in overdrive.

  • They're even making books and tv shows about poverty alleviation

  • And that's because this is a huge win.

  • Especially for Xi Jinping, who has positioned this as his own personal campaign.

  • Yes, Xi is leading China to zero poverty.

  • Party mouthpiece People's Daily is even running a series calledthe general secretary

  • came to our home.”

  • Featuring glowing pictures of Xi Jinping holding hands with the common man.

  • If you ask me, it's a missed opportunity.

  • He could have literally lifted that guy out of poverty.

  • But this is all part of Xi's man of the people persona, like when he sat and ate an

  • ordinary steamed bun at an ordinary restaurant.

  • Just don't call Xi a steamed bun.

  • Because then you're going to jail.

  • Yes, Xi is a man of the people.

  • As long as the people obey him.

  • This campaign is also a huge win for the Party in general.

  • You know, the Party that's devoted to serving the people heart and soul.

  • My favorite Chinese state-run media, the Global Times, ran this article about how China's

  • miraculous poverty alleviation is due to the Communist Party and China's socialist system.

  • But wait, there's more!

  • Like how they can use poverty alleviation to completely redefine human rights.

  • Is there a more important human rights agenda in the world than lifting 100 million

  • people out of poverty in eight years?”

  • Actually yes.

  • Have you considered not killing people for their organs?

  • Probably not.

  • Because those organs contribute to GDP

  • Besides, the Party has more important things to think about.

  • Like how to use poverty alleviation to criticize Western democracies...for criticizing China's

  • success.

  • And they try to make Western countries like, oh I don't know, America, look bad for not

  • eliminating poverty the way that China totally has.

  • And if you question whether China has actually eliminated poverty, you're obviously a Western

  • supremacist.

  • But while the Chinese Communist Party is having a field day with this, what happens after

  • the poverty alleviation campaign is over?

  • After the propaganda celebration ends, there could be long term issues.

  • Like the fact thatBehind the poverty drive is at least $1 trillion in loans over five

  • years, and a burden of cost falling increasingly to local governments.”

  • Local governments that already have problems dealing with massive debts.

  • And then there's the question of whether people will go back to being in poverty once

  • the government aid stops.

  • Poverty alleviation official Ou Qingping warned in December that some people still

  • reliant on aid had 'insufficient' means to grow wealthier.”

  • Then he said thatOnce alleviation policies are suspended, they are likely to return to

  • poverty." 

  • So it looks like China's poverty alleviation still has a long way to go.

  • And you know what that means.

  • It'll soon be time for another mass political campaign.

  • And now it's time for me to answer a question for a viewer who supports China Uncensored

  • on the crowd-funding website Patreon.

  • Go to patreon.com/ChinaUncensored to learn more.

  • Richard Wallberg asks:  "What do you think about Xi Jinping supporting

  • the world economic forum's Great Reset?

  • Was the CCP virus just a ruse to enforce lockdowns to enable them to implement the Great Reset?"

  • Good question, Richard.

  • We covered The Great Reset on our other channel, America Uncovered.

  • Xi Jinping might like certain parts of the great reset, in so far as it's a justification

  • for giving all governments more power.

  • But Xi Jinping, and the CCP more broadly, have their own agendaswhich are probably

  • more sinister than the great reset that the World Economic Forum talks about.

  • There's no evidence that the CCP Virus is a ruse to enforce lockdowns.

  • The virus is real.

  • And the CCP ultimately needs the people to work.

  • If people are out of work and running out of money for too long, it creates potential

  • for massive civil unrest.

  • And that could threaten the CCP's grip on power.

  • Thanks for your question, Richard.

  • And thank you for watching China Uncensored.

  • I'm Chris Chappell.

  • See you next time.

China claims it's eliminated poverty?

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