Middle-income Stage Of Development Of Chinese Poverty Reduction Strategy And Policy Choice

The human history of social development is a process of elimination of poverty, pursuit of common prosperity, fairness and justice. Elimination of poverty is both a development issue and a justice problem. Poverty reduction action of the human society is only a starting point, there is no end. Always focusing on the poverty reduction is a reflection of the development and progress of human civilization.Poverty reduction is a common mission throughout human history. The earliest social actions of poverty reduction were the struggles against the absence of survival materials within the clan or tribe. After the formation of class society, humans continue to struggle with natural disasters and following famines. After the founding of the United Nations since1945, poverty reduction became the joint actions of the countries all around the world and an important part of global governance. In the21st century, the United Nations pay more attention to the problems of poverty and poverty reduction, putting forward and putting into practice the Millennium Development Goals and a new poverty reduction strategy. Since1986, China carried out an organized and planned special project of rural poverty reduction, achieving remarkable achievement, which laid the foundation for China’s overall well-off society and made an important contribution to global poverty governance cause. In March2004, the United Nations released the first progress report of Millennium Development Goals, showing that China’s poverty reduction had achieved the Millennium Development Goals in advance.In2010, China became the second largest economy in the world, and according to World Bank’s per capita GNI indicator, China is stepping into a upper mid-income country. Ten years from2011to2020is the key period for China to build a moderately prosperous society and to reduce poverty in rural areas. In the new period, how to successfully realize economic and social transformation, to eliminate absolute poverty by2020, to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society, while avoiding falling into the "middle income trap", to develop into the ranks of developed countries as soon as possible. All above are important theoretical and practical issues for China.The temporal and spatial orientation researches on Mid-income stage and China are critical. Firstly, it has a positive effect on theoretical study of poverty reduction. Secondly, it gives conductions for China’s poverty reduction action. Thirdly, it may promote the social equity and justice in practice. In addition, this poverty reduction study provides certain reference for the other developing countries of middle-income. However, due to different national circumstances and conditions, the conclusion of this research does not apply to all countries; it gives references to the countries which have similar problems.This paper consists of8chapters:Chapter one is introduction. It mainly answers three basic questions of development strategy of China’s poverty reduction:why, what and how to study. These illustrate the significance, content and methods of this research.Chapter two is the elaboration of poverty theory. It sorts out the two levels from the basic theory of poverty and the development of the national poverty, and describes the latest achievements of poverty reduction and developing theory:Pro-poor Growth and New Structuralism. Classic poverty theory and the latest achievements set out the theoretical basis for the strategy and policy options for this paper.Chapter three is about different stages of poverty-reduction strategy and policy tools. This chapter does not confined to the longitudinal anatomy of a sample of one given country, but in a broader international perspective it contrast or summarize respectively the poverty reduction practice in stages of low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. This analysis is an entirely new perspective, providing paradigm for the strategic and policy options comparing to the existing poverty studies.Chapter four is the review of the practices and policies in the different stages of rural poverty reduction in China. About the division of the historical stage, this article breaks the popular five stages of original time clues and gives a three stages theory based on WB income index. The three stages are low-income, lower middle-income and upper middle income (Middle-income stage will be further subdivided into two smaller stages. Because China did not enter the high-income stage, this chapter does not analyze it into some sub-stages). It also assessed the poverty reduction actions and policies of various stages. This part provides a historical reference for the strategy and policy options.Chapter five describes international experiences of poverty reduction, including high-income country such as America, and middle-income countries such as Colombia, Malaysia and Indonesia. This paper sums up the implications for China in practice of the international poverty reduction on the basis of the analysis of country experiences. Obviously, the representative country practices provide international experience for the strategic and policy options of this paper.The sixth chapter analyzes the new features and the challenges of poverty reduction and development in middle-income stage of China. It set a "target" for proposing the development strategies of poverty reduction and policy options.Chapter seven proposes the whole development strategy for poverty reduction in the mid-income period of China. To deal with new features and new challenges of China poverty reduction and development in middle-income stage, this paper put forward three major development strategies for poverty reduction of China in accordance with paradigm of the strategy-the target-the path. They are Sustainable Development (strategy)-physical capital construction (goal)-the transformation of economic development (path); innovation and development (strategy)-Human capital construction (goal)-the development of human resources (path); inclusive development (strategy)-social capital construction (target)-to promote social public (path). At the same time, this chapter analyzes poverty reduction mechanism of different development strategies.Chapter eight gives advices for China’s poverty reduction in mid-income period. It gives the systematical advices in taxation and finance, finance poverty alleviation, human resources, social policy, and special anti-poverty policies. These advices comply with China’s poverty reduction atmosphere in the mid-income stage. On the basis of past research, this paper has following possible innovations:Firstly, in the framework of the study, it points out that the trinity of generalized capital lack of material capital, human capital and social capital is the main reason of poverty and development. Then it puts forward strategic options and policy recommendations of three major capital constructions. Secondly, in research perspectives, the paper takes the method of macro-analysis to explore the poverty characteristics and poverty reduction modes of the different income stages, including low-income stage, mid-income stage and high-income stage. The analysis perstective is a completely new attempt. Thirdly, it builds a strategic options framework corresponding to the three major capital constructions in the strategic choice. That is the integrated use of the sustainable development strategy, innovation and development strategy and inclusive development strategy. Fourthly, about policies and recommendations, the paper proposes taxation and finance, finance poverty alleviation, human resources, social development and special poverty reduction policies, corresponding to the three capital construction. Particularly, in the analysis of special poverty reduction policies, it builds a "regional development","family development" and "personal growth" and other multi-level pattern of poverty reduction; and discusses the new path of China’s rural poverty reduction from multidimensional perspective.Due to individual research capacity limitations, this study has the following deficiencies:The first one is about the retrieval and use of historical documents, the paper focuses on strategies and policies of poverty reduction and development rather than the literature of poverty reduction theory. Secondly, it focuses on theoretical analysis but less uses case to make empirical analysis. And this policy system is set up only as a counter measures, not yet to be applied practically. Thirdly, regarding the poverty reduction experience of international community, it only selects some countries to conduct analysis of other country cases because of the lack of fieldwork and the latest literature. The above-mentioned will be the direction and space of the follow-up study, I will do continuous effort.