Poverty eradication by 2020: A reality check

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2020

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, in a show that was streamed live on August 27, Kaiser and Jeremy examine China’s efforts to fulfill the goal of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 of eradicating extreme poverty in China by the end of this year. They are joined by two guests: Gāo Qín 高琴 is a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work and the founding director of the Columbia China Center for Social Policy. She is a leading authority on China’s social welfare system and published a book titled Welfare, Work, and Poverty: Social Assistance in China. Matthew Chitwood, who spent two years researching rural poverty in the remote mountain village of Bangdong in Yunnan Province, brings an on-the-ground perspective on poverty alleviation. He is currently writing a book based on his field research.

4:39: Xi Jinping’s personal project of poverty eradication

12:23: Poverty in China is confined to rural areas

25:44: How rural poverty alleviation actually works in China

34:16: Chinese social assistance programs and means testing

48:49: Overlooked topics in the discussion on poverty eradication

Recommendations:

Jeremy: Clean: The New Science of Skin, by James Hamblin.

Matthew: Chinese Village, Socialist State, by Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, Mark Selden, and Kay Ann Johnson.

Gao: Blaming Immigrants: Nationalism and the Economics of Global Movement, by Neeraj Kaushal, and The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, by Arthur Kleinman.

Kaiser: Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich, by Thomas Levenson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this special live streaming edition of the Cynica podcast.
0:12.3	It was the discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina.
0:16.5	SubChina is the best way for you to keep on top of all the news out of China with our daily
0:20.9	access email newsletter, our website, which is just chock full of terrific original reported
0:26.3	pieces as well as op-eds, and of course through our ever-widening range of videos and podcasts.
0:32.7	It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:38.6	I'm Kaiser Gwold coming to you today from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
0:41.9	Joining me from Nashville, Tennessee, is the man singly responsible for the hoarding of most
0:46.2	of the state's toilet paper and especially paper towels, which he's stored in this enormous
0:50.2	warehouse, which serves as a cult headquarters also for him.
0:53.0	And they've been there since March. I've told him he should stack them inside that room that he's recording in to absorb some of
0:59.4	the nasty echo and vastly improve his damn audio, but he just never listens. Do you never listen,
1:04.5	Jeremy, greet the people.
1:08.1	Hello, people. I mean, of all the things that I might hoard, toilet paper is definitely not one of them. But I'm amazed. I don't know if this is the same around the country. There are still toilet paper and paper tile shortages. Like our local supermarket is still restricted to buy only two packets at once. Anyway.
1:28.0	As you say, anyway, as most of our listeners are doubtless aware,
1:32.2	Beijing has set a very ambitious goal for itself,
1:35.9	the complete eradication of poverty in China this year 2020.
1:40.8	We thought we'd do a bit of a reality check
1:43.2	and see how the rhetoric and the reality actually compare.
1:46.6	Have the goals been derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic?
1:50.9	Has poverty actually been eradicated?
1:53.9	How is poverty actually measured?
	...

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