CHINA'S BLUEPRINT FOR ERADICATING POVERTY

An Intimate Look At Vision And Grit

LONG ISLAND, N.Y., Feb. 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA'S ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGIES: Cases Of 20 Chinese Changing Lives (published by Springer and New Channel International Education Group), William N. Brown, PhD, a business professor at Xiamen University, gives a first-hand account of how China's population has lifted itself out of poverty by relying on a combination of government support and individual initiative.

The book recounts Brown's trips throughout China, starting from 1988 when he moved with his family to Xiamen University to study Chinese. At that time, large stretches of National Highway were dirt or gravel. In remote areas, farmers worked dawn to dusk getting crops to market over steep mountain trails. Yet they were optimistic because China was investing heavily in rural infrastructure.

He and his family bought and customized a 15-passenger van and drove around Southeast China. It was a grueling drive, but they set their sights on Tibet. They spent three months driving from Xiamen to Inner Mongolia in the North, west across the Gobi Desert to Qinghai and across the Tangula Pass into Tibet, returning to Xiamen through South China. After driving across so many miles of China, Brown lauded China's seven-decade commitment to ending poverty.

Drawing on interviews with Chinese from diverse backgrounds, as well as local and national leaders, Brown offers insights into the challenges that have forced China to continually evolve its programs to resolve even the most intractable cases of poverty.

China learned early on that economic development alone is not enough to end poverty because wealth does not simply "trickle" down to the poor.  And though aid is needed at first, long-term it can lead to dependency and poverty of spirit. China aimed to foster self-reliance by providing even the remotest people the infrastructure and support to lift themselves from poverty.

In 2019 Brown drove around China again to see how much had changed in 25 years. Thanks to the world's best highway network, he finished the trip in 32 days – a trip that took three months in 1994. He saw firsthand that even the remotest Tibetan valleys had benefited.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA'S ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGIES (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-7281-2) will inspire readers to take heart from China's example, because as a Chinese leader told Brown, "As long as some are poor, we are all poor."

SOURCE New Channel International Education Group

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