Recently, the Deputy Governor of Guizhou, Luo Qiang, claimed that after Guizhou’s “poverty alleviation,” the population with an annual income of less than 10,000 yuan has basically been “dynamically cleared.” This statement has sparked mockery and criticism from netizens.
According to a report by The Paper, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office of the Communist Party of China on the 14th, Luo Qiang, the Deputy Governor of Guizhou Province, stated that after Guizhou “successfully won the battle against poverty,” they “persisted in taking the prevention of large-scale returning to poverty as the bottom line,” and “by the end of last year, the population with an annual per capita net income of less than 10,000 yuan had basically achieved dynamic clearance.”
Luo Qiang’s use of the term “dynamic clearance” to describe poverty alleviation has caused netizens to satirize. Some people feel frightened upon hearing the words “dynamic clearance.”
“Dynamic clearance” was a policy of epidemic prevention and control adopted by the Communist Party from 2020 to 2022, characterized by strict lockdowns, transfer, and isolation, which was criticized for causing a large-scale humanitarian disaster.
Many netizens believe that “dynamic clearance” itself implies falsification of poverty alleviation.
On mainland Weibo, a netizen commented, “Can’t we clear all the paper poverty on paper?”
“By just looking at the key words ‘annual per capita income basically being dynamically cleared,’ one can see how much water is in it.”
“Are people with incomes of less than 10,000 yuan all being driven out of Guizhou?”
“If he believes it, then that’s his belief.”
On an overseas platform, many netizens also criticized the Communist Party for falsification:
Wu Renhua: “Chinese officials are habitual liars, completely untrustworthy.”
Wudao: “If it’s not a household below 10,000 yuan, then when statistics are collected, they move everyone to the neighboring province. This way, our province will no longer have households below 10,000 yuan.”
David Sall: “Chairman Xi has long since overcome greed, while this guy has just overcome poverty, singing against the central authority.”
Poseidon: “In plain language, if the monthly income is 900, then the annual salary exceeds 10,000.”
Zhuganglie: “The meaning of ‘dynamic clearance’ is not to solve the problem of poverty but to remove those still in poverty, finding one to remove one.”
Some question how many elderly farmers in the province, who have no work capacity, are able to reach an annual income of 10,000 yuan?
The so-called “poverty alleviation battle” was set as a so-called “significant political task” by Xi Jinping in 2015. By the end of 2020, the poverty-stricken province of Guizhou claimed that the entire province had achieved poverty alleviation; on February 25, 2021, Xi Jinping declared at a conference that the national poverty alleviation battle had achieved a “comprehensive victory,” boasting that it was a “miracle on earth.”
However, on April 24 of this year, Premier Li Keqiang told local officials to “firmly guard against the bottom line of not allowing large-scale return to poverty.” This statement was questioned as the poverty problem still remains severe.
Former Premier Li Keqiang had repeatedly hinted at falsification of poverty alleviation. In May 2020, months before Xi Jinping announced the victory over poverty, Li Keqiang openly stated during a press conference at the “Two Sessions” that 600 million Chinese people had a monthly income of less than 1,000 yuan. On June 27, 2022, Li Keqiang publicly stated again that due to factors such as the epidemic and disasters, the number of people in difficulty has increased.
The field of poverty alleviation within the Communist Party is also a hotspot for corruption. On May 18 of this year, it was officially announced that Tang Renjian, the Secretary of the Party Group and Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Communist Party, had been arrested. Tang Renjian had also served as the Deputy Leader of the State Council Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development.