Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
– The last nine poverty-stricken county-level regions in east China’s Anhui Province have been removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties.
– This marks that all county-level regions in the Yangtze River Delta, consisting of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, have been officially lifted out of poverty for the first time in history.
HEFEI, April 29 (Xinhua) — Sitting in front of his smartphone, Zhang Chuanfeng touts dried sweet potatoes to viewers on China’s popular video-sharing app Douyin, also known as TikTok.
“These are made from sweet potatoes I grew myself. They are sweet and have an excellent texture,” said Zhang while livestreaming in Tangjiahui Township of Jinzhai County in east China’s Anhui Province. Tucked away in the boundless Dabie Mountains, the township used to have the biggest poor population in the county.
Aerial photo taken on April 16, 2020 shows residential buildings in Dawan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
Jinzhai County is among the last nine county-level regions in Anhui that have been removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties, according to an announcement issued by the provincial government Wednesday. They are also the last group of county-level regions that bid farewell to poverty in the Yangtze River Delta.
E-COMMERCE
Zhang might seem like a typical e-commerce businessman reaping success in China’s booming livestreaming industry. But his road to success has been a lot bumpier: he suffers from dwarfism.
A little more than 1.4 meters tall, Zhang has a babyface, making him “look like a junior school student,” he said. But the man, 38, is the father of a nine-year-old boy.
For Zhang, life was tough before 2014. “Nobody wanted me because of my ‘disabilities’ when I went out to look for jobs,” he said. “I was turned down again and again.”
Zhang was put on the government’s poverty list in 2014 as China implemented targeted poverty-relief measures. With the help of local officials, he got a bank loan of 10,000 yuan (about 1,400 U.S. dollars) and bought 22 lambs. He tended the animals whole-heartedly and seized every opportunity to learn how to raise them more professionally.
Zhang Chuanfeng feeds his lambs in Zhufan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 26, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)
Within a year, the number of his lambs expanded to hundreds. In 2016, Zhang’s earnings exceeded 100,000 yuan, more than enough for him to cast off poverty.
Riding on this success, Zhang began to seek new opportunities. He rented a shop and started selling products online to embrace an e-commerce strategy the local government introduced in 2017.
More than 100 online shops, including Zhang’s, in the county have helped more than 7,000 poverty-stricken households sell about 73 million yuan worth of local specialties since 2018. Zhang alone earned 500,000 yuan from a sales revenue of 5 million yuan last year.
A villager arranges local specialties for sale at Dawan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
WICKERWORK SUCCESS
About 100 km north of Jinzhai lies Funan, a place that used to be vulnerable to constant floods.
Zhang Chaoling, who lives by the Huaihe River in Funan County, had to flee her hometown at a young age due to floods, but has flourished on a willow plantation along the river later.
“The land is largely covered by silt following continual flooding in the past. It is an ideal place to plant willows and make wickerwork,” Zhang said.
Zhang left her hometown for Guangzhou in 1993 and found a job in a garment factory. A few years later, she founded a trading company with her husband in Guangzhou, selling wickerwork products from her hometown to other countries.
Zhang returned to her hometown and set up a wickerwork production base in 2011. Funan is famous for its delicate wickerwork. Skilled craftsmen traditionally use local willow as a raw material to weave products such as baskets, furniture and home decorations.
A villager arranges wickerwork products in Funan County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 15, 2020. (Photo by Zhou Mu/Xinhua)
“The flood is well controlled now. I remember the last huge flood came in 2007,” Zhang said.
Taking advantage of the fertile land along the Huaihe River, she plants over 130 hectares of willow trees and employs hundreds of locals mostly in their 50s and 60s.
“I can process 100 to 150 kg of willow twigs per day, from which I make around 80 yuan,” said Geng Shifen, who peels willow twigs with a clamp next to the plantation.
A total of 130,000 people are engaged in the wickerwork industry in Funan, creating an output of nearly 9 billion yuan in 2019, and helping 15,000 locals shake off poverty, local statistics showed.
POVERTY REDUCTION FEAT
The Anhui provincial government Wednesday announced that its last nine county-level regions including Jinzhai and Funan are removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties.
This marks that all 31 impoverished county-level regions in Anhui have shaken off poverty, echoing China’s efforts to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of 2020.
With the announcement, all county-level regions in the Yangtze River Delta have been officially lifted out of poverty for the first time in history.
A bus runs on a rural road in Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
Covering a 358,000-square-km expanse, the Yangtze River Delta, consisting of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, is one of the most populated and economically dynamic areas in China, contributing one-fourth of the country’s GDP.
Anhui had a population of 63.65 million as of 2019, official data showed. The poor population in the province had decreased from 4.84 million in 2014 to 87,000 in 2019, and the poverty headcount ratio had been reduced from 9.1 percent to 0.16 percent during the period, according to the provincial poverty relief office.
A county can be removed from the list if its impoverished population drops to less than 2 percent, according to a national mechanism established in April 2016 to eliminate poverty in affected regions. The ratio can be loosened to 3 percent in the western region.
By the end of 2019, 5.51 million people in China were still living in poverty.
“We will continue our work to prevent people from returning to poverty, and help the remaining poor population shake off poverty by all means,” said Jiang Hong, director of the Anhui provincial poverty relief office.
BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) — While turning 70 often signals the beginning of a person’s twilight years, for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it marks a golden age full of hope and vigor.
The PRC celebrated its 70th birthday on Oct. 1. China’s transformation from an agricultural society isolated from the West into the world’s second-largest economy open wide is nothing short of a miracle.
More importantly, it has charted a new path for developing countries to modernize.
Seven decades ago, the war-ravaged country started from scratch. Observers are astonished at China’s large-scale modernization, its reduction of the number of people living in poverty and the sheer volume of its consumer market. Their heads have been turned not only because of the speed of the transition but also by the unique path taken to realize this great transformation.
Reflecting on its past and present, and through experimentation, China has identified and will continue down the right path — socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Reform is the engine of China’s miracle. There is no ready-made solution for the development issues facing China. From creating special economic zones to building free trade pilot zones, from carrying out family-based production contracts to revitalizing state-owned enterprises, China has been one of the most successful countries in piloting reforms over the past decades. Now the reform is more in-depth and more comprehensive in economic, political, cultural, social and ecological sectors.
The Chinese government stresses being effective and responsive to the public interest. Development outlines are far-sighted. For example, the five-year plans are made to deal with comprehensive aspects that concern human development: food, transportation, communication, environment, health and education. These plans are a priority for the government.
Of course these achievements could never have been realized without the leadership of the CPC.
From the people and for the people, the CPC has always upheld its principle of striving for the happiness of the people and the rejuvenation of the nation.
At a life-or-death moment, the CPC shouldered the mission of saving the nation from existential peril. After 28 years of bloody struggle, it led the Chinese people to overthrow the “three mountains” placed on their heads and put an end to the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society of old China. Gone are the days where any attempt to bully China with “fists” or “intimidation” would succeed.
Despite overseas doubts, misunderstandings and predictions that its survival would be short-lived, the CPC has stunned the world with its leadership, innovative theories and ability to unite and organize the people.
It abolished the agricultural tax that had been in place for more than 2,600 years; it established a political system in which people are masters of their own affairs; it did its utmost to help people shake off poverty and keep nearly 1.4 billion people well-off.
No ruling party in the world can match the CPC’s record of adhering to the truth, versing itself in self-reform and self-purification, and turning impossibility into certainty in the face of difficulties and challenges, again and again.
The 70-year journey was never smooth. Trials and hardships abounded. The Chinese people dealt with floods and massive earthquakes and guarded against SARS and financial tsunamis. Yet these twists and turns never blocked China’s way forward but made it more sober, determined and mature.
Today, more than at any other time in history, China is closer to, more confident and more capable of achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. However, lofty goals are never easily reached.
The world has been undergoing tremendous changes unseen in a century. Resistant external forces and headwinds still remain. “Zero-sum game” and “superior civilization” mentalities, among others, are prevailing.
The CPC will continue to lead the Chinese people to fight trade bullying, blackmailing and hegemonism. Only the CPC can lead China to emerge as a stronger country.
It all started long ago, and the journey is far from over.
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) – Heavy rains have killed at least 113 people in India’s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states over the past three days, officials said on Monday, as flood waters swamped a major city, inundated hospital wards and forced the evacuation of inmates from a jail.
India’s monsoon season that begins in June usually starts to retreat by early September, but heavy rains have continued across parts of the country this year, triggering floods.
An official said that at least 93 people had died in most populous Uttar Pradesh since Friday after its eastern areas were lashed by intense monsoon showers.
Rising water levels forced authorities to shift 900 inmates from a prison in eastern Ballia district, police officer Santosh Verma said.
In neighbouring Bihar, an impoverished agrarian region that was hit by floods earlier this year, the death toll from the latest bout of rain had reached 20 on Monday, a state government official said.
Bihar’s capital city of Patna, home to around 2 million, has been badly hit, with waist-deep flood waters across many streets, and entering homes, shops, and even the wards of a major hospital. In some parts, authorities deployed boats to rescue residents.
“The rains have stopped but there is waterlogging in many areas,” Bihar’s Additional Secretary in the Disaster Relief Department Amod Kumar Sharan said.
In its bulletin on Monday, India’s Meteorological Department said the intensity of rainfall over Bihar was very likely to reduce. Showers in Uttar Pradesh are also expected to abate this week.
Weather department officials said this month that monsoon rains were likely to be above average for the first time in six years. [nL3N26B1MD]
At least 13 people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes as Typhoon Lekima hit China.
Sixteen people were also missing after a landslide was triggered by the storm, state media reported.
Lekima made landfall in the early hours of Saturday in Wenling, between Taiwan and China’s financial capital Shanghai.
The storm was initially designated a “super typhoon”, but weakened slightly before landfall – when it still had winds of 187km/h (116mph).
The fatal landslide happened when a dam broke in Wenzhou, near where the storm made landfall, state media said.
Lekima is now slowly winding its way north through the Zhejiang province, and is expected to hit Shanghai, which has a population of more than 20 million.
Emergency crews have battled to save stranded motorists from floods. Fallen trees and power cuts are widespread.
Image copyright EPAImage caption A worker looks for his belongings at a construction site shelter collapsed by the storm
Authorities have cancelled more than a thousand flights and cancelled train services as the city prepares for the storm.
It is expected to weaken further by the time it reaches Shanghai, but will still bring a high risk of dangerous flooding.
The city evacuated some 250,000 residents, with another 800,000 in the Zhejiang province also being taken from their homes.
An estimated 2.7 million homes in the region lost power as power lines toppled in the high winds, Chinese state media said.
It is the ninth typhoon of the year, Xinhua news said – but the strongest storm seen in years. It was initially given China’s highest level of weather warning but was later downgraded to an “orange” level.
Media caption Typhoon Lekima inches towards China
Chinese weather forecasters said the storm was moving north at just 15km/h (9mph).
It earlier passed Taiwan, skirting its northern tip and causing a handful of injuries and some property damage.
Coming just a day after a magnitude six earthquake, experts warned that the combination of earth movement and heavy rain increased the risk of landslides.
Lekima is one of two typhoons in the western Pacific at the moment.
Further east, Typhoon Krosa is spreading heavy rain across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is moving north-west and could strike Japan some time next week, forecasters said.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 