REDUCING the number of absolute poor from 250 million to just 50 million in 20 years is the Beijing leadership's proudest boast, but a new, two-year study has concluded the claim is not based on facts.
It found the government's poverty alleviation programme, designed to fulfil Li Peng's commitment to lift everyone out of poverty by 2000, has made little impact with much of the money disappearing into the pockets of the rich.
'Since 1986, the Chinese government has pursued one of the most ambitious efforts ever to eradicate rural poverty, investing billions of dollars in regionally targeted investment projects,' say Wang Sangui of the China Poverty Research Foundation, Wu Guobao of the Rural Development Institute and Albert Park from the University of Michigan, joint authors of Regional Poverty Targeting In China, funded by two American charities, the Ford Foundation and the Luce Foundation.
'Unfortunately, over time, both the accuracy of targeting and the measured impact of the programmes on rural income growth have deteriorated,' they concluded.
Paradoxically, the 1990s have seen increasing numbers of people coming under poverty relief funding, they said.
In 1985, the number of rural poor was put at 125 million spread over 258 counties. By 1993 the figure had fallen to just 80 million, but there were 328 designated poor counties.
