CPC, turning 99, poised to achieve anti-poverty milestone

BETTER LIFE

Bai Gaoshan's family used to live in a Yaodong, a house built into the hardened earth common across the Loess Plateau in northern China. The farmland they worked was dry and barren, and their lives harder still.

Along with 400 other people, they were relocated to a specially built village in the township of Xiping, Shanxi province.

Thanks to the government's support, Bai's son received professional training and got a new job as a welder, earning about 40,000 yuan a year.

Like Bai's family, more than 9.6 million poor people in China have been relocated away from uninhabitable areas over the past couple of years to places where they can get access to more job opportunities and better public services.

When living in Yaodong, Bai worried that his son would be too poor to marry. After moving out, his son got married and now has a son of his own. They are happy, he said.

"The Party is good. It does things that bring tangible benefits to the people," Bai said.

Whether it is a new skill or relocation or a host of other projects scattered across all four corners of China, the CPC's poverty reduction campaign is all about improving the people's life.

Ending rural poverty is considered a defining benchmark of attaining the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

But that is not the end. The country will focus on rural vitalization to strive for an even better life for rural residents.

"Being lifted out of poverty is not an end in itself but the starting point of a new life and a new pursuit," Xi said in Ningxia. "As people's aspirations to live a better life grow, we must continue to improve our work and expand the areas of support."