Ten years ago I happened to read an article about Westerners going to China to adopt girls. It was written by a woman who had adopted a Chinese girl abandoned at birth and told how the little girl had been found. It all started one spring morning when a man walking in a public park thought he heard a newborn crying. There was actually a bench not far from him, where a wicker basket was placed. The man approached and, to his surprise, found a little girl inside. He took her and took her to an orphanage.
When the orphanage staff pulled the baby out of the basket to change her dirty clothes, a small sweet potato fell from the folds of the fabrics. Hearing this story from the orphanage staff, the woman was surprised: why would someone wrap a sweet potato with a baby? They explained that the child’s biological mother probably lived in a village. She was too poor to keep the baby and had given her away along with the most precious thing she had, that sweet potato. Similar items were often found with abandoned children.
According to the latest statements from the Chinese state, such a situation is unlikely to happen again. In recent days, the People’s Republic of China has sanctioned the end of extreme poverty in the country. According to data released by Beijing, one hundred million people have been saved from misery. This means that no one in China now lives on less than $ 1.69 a day.
However, doubts remain about how China has managed to reduce poverty. The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, published three pages congratulating President Xi Jinping for having crossed this milestone one month before the deadline for reaching it. “The problem of absolute poverty, which has plagued us for centuries, is over,” announced the People’s Daily. For his part, Xi Jinping wants the nation to unite around a single goal.
However, some questions remain unanswered. According to the Washington Post, China has not made clear what are the criteria that define “extreme poverty”. In the past, the Chinese have used criteria other than those of the World Bank. And there is no clarity on how Beijing will support its goal of eradicating poverty in one year, as the World Bank has predicted that in 2021, around the world, 150 million more people could sink into more poverty black due to the pandemic.
There are also doubts about the method by which China has managed to reduce the number of the poor. An investigation by a Western reporter examined the case of a village in the province of Gansu, which borders Xinjiang. Hundreds of people were moved from the village to another location and placed in newly built buildings, equipped with water and electricity. Villagers were concerned about how they would pay for the new housing. Others were given documents showing they were residents of nearby Xinjiang, and were told they should move there because there was more financial resources. In reality, that land belonged to ethnic Uyghurs, the Muslim minority persecuted by the government. Many of these are locked up in re-education camps.
The leaders of the People’s Republic of China want 2021, the year of the centenary of the Communist Party, to be a special moment: one in which China will be able to sit alongside the world superpowers. It is a seductive dream. And certainly many in the country seem to believe that announcing a victory is enough to make it effective. Beijing is acting like the superpower it wants to be.
Dreams, however, can be dangerous and blind. While the reality is complicated: data indicates that China’s birth rate is slowing, and that means there will be less labor available, a threat to growth (China’s economy is still expected to grow by 6 percent. ). Another problem is the spread of news about the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, an element that the United States will try to use in their favor.
Will China maintain its global position when companies, discouraged by rising Chinese wages, move to areas like Africa or Mexico, where labor costs even less? Will the slowdown in the growth rate allow China to continue investing large capital in Asia?
The question is therefore not whether Beijing has achieved its goal, but whether China’s dream is too big, too expensive and too risky. Perhaps even for China itself.
(Translation by Federico Ferrone)
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