[Epoch Times September 30, 2021](The Epoch Times reporter Ning Haizhong reported) China’s electricity curtailment wave has swept more than a dozen provinces, and the range of electricity curtailment has expanded from industrial electricity to domestic electricity, and the people are complaining. On this occasion, the New Office of the Communist Party of China issued the “Comprehensive Well-off White Paper”, endorsing Xi Jinping’s announcement of comprehensive poverty alleviation and entering a well-off society, which aroused concern.
The New Office of the State Council of the Communist Party of China issued the “Comprehensive Well-off White Paper” on September 28, claiming that the CCP’s comprehensive well-off society is “a well-off society with the coordinated development of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization, and ecological civilization.” Well-off in the right direction” goes on and on.
Have the Chinese really lifted themselves out of poverty? Has China really entered a well-off society? What do the Chinese people think of this “white paper” when the authorities throw it out, and what do outside observers think about it?
CCP’s low standards for poverty alleviation
The leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, announced on February 25 this year that China had completed a comprehensive eradication of poverty, which he called a “human miracle.”
The CCP believes that building a well-off society in an all-round way is a historical solution to the “absolute poverty problem”, but its poverty alleviation standards are considered a digital game. When the CCP announced a complete eradication of poverty, it caused many controversies and criticisms.
The reporter inquired about data and found that according to the poverty alleviation standards set by the Chinese Communist Party, an individual with an annual income of 4,000 yuan (RMB) is considered to be a “poverty alleviation.” However, according to data released by the World Bank in 2018, “the daily living expenses per person is less than US$5.5” is listed as the poverty line, and there are also extreme poverty lines where the daily living expenses are less than US$3.2 and US$1.9. And based on the minimum standard of 1.9 US dollars, which is classified as an extreme poverty level, the annual living expenses also need 693.5 US dollars, which is equivalent to 4,500 yuan, which still exceeds the poverty line set by the Chinese Communist Party by about 12%.
Compared with the standards of other countries, the 2020 poverty line in the United States is: annual income per person is US$12,760, which is equivalent to RMB 82,560, which is approximately 21 times the poverty standard of the CCP. According to an announcement issued by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Taiwan on September 29, 2020, even in areas with the lowest standards, the minimum living expenses in 2021 will be NT$122,102, which is equivalent to about 28,083 yuan, which is about 7 times the CCP’s poverty standard.
What once caused an uproar in the public opinion is that on May 28, 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang disclosed at the National People’s Congress press conference that there are 600 million people (42% of the population) in China with a monthly income of about RMB 1,000. This data was subsequently confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China. The monthly income is 1,000 yuan, and the annual income is 12,000 yuan, which has exceeded the Chinese Communist Party’s poverty line by three times.
As the prime minister of a country in charge of people’s livelihood affairs, Li Keqiang has not publicly stated his position on the “human miracle” claimed by Xi Jinping.
The people reflect the distress
Dong Guangping, a mainland democratic public welfare activist, told The Epoch Times, “There is a standard for a well-off society. What is a well-off society? His standard is set by himself. He does not follow the international standards and the standards commonly used by everyone. There is no comparison. The so-called so-called. Well-off, what is well-off, and adding a comprehensive well-off? None of these things can be checked, there is no standard, and it cannot be verified. It is all he is talking about.”
The outbreak in China has not calmed down one after another, and the authorities’ strict containment measures have made people’s lives more difficult.
Dong Guangping said that under the epidemic situation in the past two years, people’s lives have become increasingly difficult. The entire economy is declining and prices are rising. But income is not rising. Instead, it is declining. Life is getting harder and harder. Even some retired people are already planning carefully with that little money, and they have to go to the rural wholesale market to buy things. Therefore, this propaganda is purely deceptive. People’s lives have been declining at all, and the most face-off is the well-off.
Recently, due to various reasons, China’s electricity curtailment has swept more than ten provinces. Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangxi and many other places have successively imposed power rationing in September, and the power rationing measures in the northeast region have expanded from industrial power to domestic power, which has aroused public complaints.
Jilin businessman Ms. Gong told the Epoch Times reporter: “There are power cuts. Now the domestic situation is severe and it is very difficult to make money. The people are just making ends meet.”
“The current economic situation in the country has plummeted, and the people have no money in their pockets. Many of the people have no food and jumped off the building.”
“I used to earn 10,000 yuan a month in this shop, but now I earn more than 1,000 yuan a month, and now it is at this level. You don’t know what is going on in China.” Ms. Gong said.
CCP accused of misappropriating “well-off”
The white paper of the Communist Party of China linked the “well-off society” to the slogan of “common prosperity” put forward by the authorities in mid-August. It also contacted the “well-off society” described in ancient books, saying that the Chinese classic “The Book of Songs” contains “the people also work hard, and you can be well-off”. Verse, “Book of Rites. “Li Yun” depicts the ideal social state of a well-off society.
Regarding the CCP’s quotation of “well-off” from ancient books, current affairs commentator Xing Tianxing believes that the CCP has misappropriated the term “well-off”, which is actually a fake well-off:
“Listed a bunch of rhetoric to define the well-off society with the characteristics of the CCP because it is different from the well-off society in the hearts of ordinary people. There are many areas in China where many people are very poor, and the CCP itself exposes the lies of the well-off society. It tried to replace the orthodox concept of well-off society with the definition of a fake well-off society. It said that absolute poverty is resolved, that is, the poverty that still exists belongs to relative poverty. If the standard for poverty alleviation is lowered, then there will be no poverty. Therefore, the CCP’s Alleviating poverty and being well-off are all sophistry and self-deception lies.”
Xing Tianxing said, “The Chinese Communist Party regards the history of ancient Chinese civilization as a dark and backward history, but misappropriating the term’well-off’. It advertises that it has realized the dream of the Chinese people thousands of years ago and shows how great the Communist Party is. In fact, it is very shameless. .”
Scholars: The gap between the rich and the poor in China is bad in nature
Hu Ping, a scholar and honorary editor-in-chief of “Beijing Spring”, told The Epoch Times that the word “well-off” was originally known to be taken from the ancient “Book of Songs”. It is not a modern social, political and economic concept. Of course, the Chinese Communist Party announced a well-off indicator in 1991. The problem is that indicator, which was announced by itself. And the well-off in the minds of ordinary people is not only to get rid of poverty, not only to have food and clothing, but also to have a state of relative abundance, which is to allow most people to reach this level of relative abundance.
Hu Ping said, now that we are talking about a well-off society, we still have to compare with other countries of the same time, whether life has reached the standard of living of most people, or has it reached a state of relative abundance. It must be a considerable distance between China and the world. According to the official statement, it is nothing more than just getting rid of poverty. As Li Keqiang said, there are still 600 million people with a monthly income of less than 1,000 yuan.
He said that the state of relative abundance includes two aspects. One is that most people in this society live in a relatively affluent state. The second is that the gap between the rich and the poor in society is not particularly wide. Today, China has obviously not yet reached this standard, and the gap between the rich and the poor in China is very staggering.
Ning Jizhe, director of the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China, disclosed on September 28: China’s Gini coefficient in 2020 is 0.468, which is a cumulative decrease of 0.023 from the highest point of 0.491 in 2008.
However, according to the standards of the United Nations Development Program, the Gini coefficient of 0.4 is the warning line for income distribution, and more than 0.4 represents the polarization of the rich and the poor. A polarized society is likely to cause social class antagonisms and lead to social unrest, disclosed by Ning Jizhe According to the data, China’s Gini coefficient is still high.
Hu Ping emphasized that China’s problem of the gap between the rich and the poor is not only very serious in degree, but also very bad in nature.
He explained that the gap between rich and poor in China is not like the gap between rich and poor in other countries. For example, there is a gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, but his rich people rely on his management and his entrepreneurship, or they rely on the inheritance of history, and of course there are some problems of luck. Since the so-called reform and opening up of the CCP, some people have become rich first, and the first group of people who have become rich are the dignitaries of the ruling group. These people are the ones who engaged in communism and eliminated the rich. They wiped out the former rich people and turned their property into factories. Now that reform and opening up are about to begin, they have turned those factories into their own property and become rich themselves. Overthrow the landlords and capitalists, and now I have become a landlord and a capitalist. So this situation is unprecedentedly bad.
Hu Ping said that no country like this has ever happened. This is why the CCP has always adopted political repression, because it knows that their wealth is not coming from the right way, and it is by accidental expropriation. Once there is political openness and freedom and democracy, everyone must tell them to vomit unjust interests. Therefore, even something as simple as a request for officials to disclose their property put forward by others is considered to be a subversion of the regime.
Analysis: Issuing the “Comprehensive Well-off” White Paper is a political need
According to the “Comprehensive Well-off” white paper issued by the New Office of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping “personally planned, personally directed, and personally promoted the construction of a well-off society.” This is another description of the same kind after the official accused Xi Jinping of “personally directing” the fight against the epidemic.
Epoch Times columnist Wang He analyzed that the CCP has two considerations when it comes to the timing of the white paper. One is that the Sixth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is about to be held, and it is necessary to have a summary of the 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party. The other is for next year’s 20th National Congress, Xi has to prove that he has the need for three consecutive terms. The white paper also mentions “common prosperity”, which is Xi’s future political program, which distinguishes his “new era” from Deng Xiaoping: Deng talks about “let some people get rich first” and Xi talks about “common prosperity”. In the history of the Communist Party of China, Mao, Deng, and Xi have been side by side. However, this is a fantasy of Xi. I don’t know how long the CCP will live. Xi should be playing drums in his heart.
（Epoch Times reporters Chang Chun and Li Yun also contributed to this article）
Editor in charge: Li Qiong#
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