On the afternoon of March 29th, Unirule Policy Watch I on “New Path and Pattern for China’s Poverty Relief” was held at Unirule Beijing Office. This seminar was jointly held by Unirule Institute of Economics and Phoenix Academics. Present at the event including Mr. LI Xiaoyun, founder of The China International Development Research Network(CIDRN); Mr. MAO Yushi, Honorary President of Unirule; Mr. TANG Min, advisor to the state council; Professor YU Jianrong, Director of Centre for Studies on Social Conflicts of CASS; and Professor ZHANG Shuguang, Chairman of Unirule Academic Committee.

There were three sessions. In the first session, the experts expressed their understanding on China’s poverty relief policies.

Mr. LI Xiaoyun thought the poverty issue as were spoken of today was in fact an issue of reproduction and reformation of the society. As the economy develops, the standard of poverty line is raised accordingly, which leads to the changing of the population in poverty from year to year, which does not indicate that poverty relief was not undertaken effectively. The second issue with poverty relief is that we should acknowledge the government’s efforts in this regard as there is less ideological barriers and concerns for political incorrectness in China, and the room for improvement is well exploited. The government-led poverty relief has indeed led to impressive achievements. The current poverty issue is a result of the rapid development that is imbalanced and incoherent over the last two decades. Regarding the economic endeavours in poverty relief, Mr. LI Xiaoyun thought the critical task should be using the current social and political institutions to promote the asset management of the poor in order to avoid massive bankruptcy, instead of fixating on whether to privatise or not to.

Mr. MAO Yushi considered 1993 an important turning point in China’s poverty relief efforts. One year before, DENG Xiaoping made a historical tour in South China that emancipated people’s thoughts and consolidated market-oriented measures and poverty relief measures. Against such a backdrop, innovation and creation were, therefore, made possible. Mr. MAO Yushi thought there had never been a lack of benevolent souls in the society. However, what really matters is how to allocate the money donated by these concerned citizens to those in need from an economic point of view. It is essential to locate those in desperate need and transfer the resources of those concerned citizens to these poor people and include them in economic activities. If China allows the establishment of hospitals and supermarkets for the poor, just like India, then entrepreneurs could make money by providing for the poor and improve their livelihood, which in a sense is the accurate poverty relief measures that is also innovation in this regard.

Professor YU Jianrong thought the current poverty relief pattern features compensating the poor with public social resources, which breed severe issues of corruption. What the government need to do urgently is to set up a common social safety net that ensures basic services and guarantees for the poor. In addition, when we talk about poverty relief, it is also relevant and important to address the problem of the inter-generation poverty. More efforts need to be taken to change the social status of the second generation of the poor people. Education may be a very good approach. Regarding the social safety net, Professor YU thought the good intensions of the concerned citizens and the responsibilities of the government should be distinguished: the government should set out to eradicate poverty, while the concerned citizens aim to help those in need.