China has rehomed 9.6 million people since 2015 under plan to eliminate extreme poverty, government says

Beijing’s grand scheme is now in a new phase, ‘which is about providing support to the people who have been relocated’, official says

But not everyone who has been found a new home is happy, and many miss their old way of life, academic says

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Millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty, but not all of them like their new homes. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 10:00am, 9 Nov 2020Updated: 10:00am, 9 Nov 2020

China has provided modern new homes for more than 9.6 million people over the past five years as part of its poverty alleviation efforts, the government said.

Wang Aiwen, a vice-minister for civil affairs, said 35,000 communities providing homes, schools, jobs and medical services had been established to accommodate them.

“This is our contribution to the global effort to eradicate poverty,” he told a press conference.

“We are now into a new phase, which is about providing support to the people who have been relocated. Specifically, there are two important questions: can we make sure the programme is sustainable, and will it enable people to get rich?” Wang said.

The Chinese government set 2020 as a target for eliminating extreme poverty across the country, and since 2015 has spent more than 600 billion yuan (US$91 billion) on relocation programmes alone.

Rural families walk to their new homes in Zhaojue county, southwest China's Sichuan province. Photo: Xinhua

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