Chongqing- In the year 2020, the drive to eradicate poverty nationwide came to a successful conclusion, and Chongqing in the Southwest of China, has achieved its set goals throughout the municipality, including 18 towns and villages that were previously classified as "deeply impoverished" due to their remote locations, lack of transportation links, underdevelopment, and the shortage of vital services such as health, education, and adequate housing.
The policy was focused on assuring security in the basic needs of food and clothing for all citizens, while social safety nets were put in place to ensure that education and healthcare no longer threatened families with unmanageable financial burdens.
In addition, renovations were made to village homes to make sure they were up to standard in terms of structural integrity and fittings. Together, this policy was dubbed the Two Non-Concerns and Three Guarantees.
However, the story of poverty alleviation in Miaotang, a once extremely remote community deep in the mountains of Wushan County, Chongqing, began this process early in 2007 through the innovative approach of mass relocation, where people moved to more developed villages with modern links to major urban centers.
A small collection of mainly abandoned homes now serves as a reminder that this former community once stood inside the Wulipo Nature Reserve, Chongqing Wushan County. However, even reaching this remote location involves an epic drive along narrow cliff-edge tracks cut into the precipitous mountainsides, while multiple sharp bends often test nervous dispositions with sheer drops towards the valley floor hundreds of meters below.
The dramatic beauty of this towering mountain valley cannot help but imprint the soul with great awe for Mother Nature. Jagged karst peaks extend skywards as they vie for prominence, while vast canopies of lush vegetation interspersed with stark rockfaces are practically forbidden territory for human exploration.
Miles of perilous and inaccessible roads were always the greatest source of anguish for the impoverished villagers of Miaotang. While a core aim for poverty alleviation has been to improve the lives of people based in their native environments, in the case of Miaotang, the potential cost of building high-quality paved access roads into the township alone was estimated at around 23.5 million USD.
However, since considerable distances also separated the five villages of Miaotang, the additional task of connecting the villages by road would have raised the total cost to USD$31.5 million, an astronomical figure considering the relatively low number of villagers recorded in excess of 2,300 people.
Neither did this figure include the costs projected for building networks to connect the township with running water and electrical power, as well as the provision of public services and cultural facilities like schools, so when the decision was made to offer the choice of relocation, the overall budget needed to settle the villagers in more developed areas of Wushan County was estimated at a far more palatable USD$6.3 million.
The feasibility of mass relocation was not only limited to financial considerations. Given the extreme isolation, villagers were compelled to engage in behaviors detrimental to the principles of ecological protection, especially as Miaotown Township is located within the boundaries of Wulipo Nature Reserve, which was afforded its status among a batch of 21 such areas nationwide by the State Department in 2013.
As Wulipo sits in a tributary region of the Yangtze River, this area is home to a wide variety of animal species that vied for survival with their human neighbors. The primeval forests are home to wild bears, goats, and hogs, which depend on the natural environment, but the lack of coal and gas meant that villagers had to regularly cut and burn firewood, which damaged their habitats and polluted the air. Had they remained in Miaotang, ecological protection goals would have been impossible to meet.
Living standards and access to sustainable livelihoods were another important consideration in light of the policy of Two Non-Concerns and Three Guarantees. Since the highly impractical option of developing schools, hospitals, and utilities in Miaotang was both financially prohibitive and environmentally destructive, the resettlement of villagers into other regions of Wushan, the neighboring county of Wuxi, and even adjacent areas in Hubei Province has meant their fundamental needs in terms of poverty alleviation have been successfully catered for.
Since the relocation policy was first proposed in the year 2007, the villagers have accepted resettlement on a voluntary basis, with the vast majority of households electing to start new lives in various locations across the region. However, 127 individuals chose to remain behind in Miaotang Township, where they instead collected into a single village under the jurisdiction of Pinghe Township, a move that also led to improvements in their living conditions and livelihoods.
The 1200-year-old Chinese cedar deep in the mountains of Miaotang is the largest of its kind in Asia and has been described as a living fossil. (Photograph- James Alexander)
One curious attraction among the relatively untouched surroundings of Miaotang is the largest known Chinese fir in Asia and second worldwide. Experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations visited the area in 2005 and estimated the tree's age to be around 1,200 years, conferring its title as a 'living fossil.'
Another intriguing feature is that the fir now stands virtually alone in the midst of a giant construction site as work on the Miaotang Reservoir gathers pace ahead of its projected completion in 2025. While this major infrastructure project commenced following the relocation of local villagers, the potential loss of this irreplaceable landmark has been averted thanks to being incorporated into the overall construction process.
In recent years, ecological restoration has been a key trend that has proceeded in harmony with swift economic development. Since the relocation of Miaotang first began, the establishment of Wulipo Nature Reserve was later announced by the State Department among 21 such reserves nationwide in June 2013. Following efforts to restore the natural environment, the reserve now has 3000 hectares of primeval forest and 300 hectares of prime meadows. These are now home to many rare plants, trees, and nationally protected animal species.
Meanwhile, the new Miaotang Reservoir under construction is set to provide freshwater resources for cities and towns while providing rural dwellers with water for drinking and irrigation. Similar to the nearby Zhongzuipo Reservoir that provides hydro-power on the Houxi River, it will hold 10.64 million cubic meters of pristine water behind a concrete-steel dam 107 meters high and will play a vital role in further poverty alleviation and improvements to the lives of people in Wushan.
A journey to Miaotang takes hours on narrow cliff-edge roads, which demonstrates how remote the relocated community was before they moved away as part of the local poverty alleviation drive. (Photograph- James Alexander)
Former inhabitants of Miaotang once had a communal song that captured the harsh realities of a life cut off from civilization. A translation may go along the following lines.
"The heavens tower above. Impassable rivers cross below. The peaks respond in echo, and mountain tracks endlessly unfold. We survive on beets, live by chasms, heat beside the fire, and sleep upon corn shells."
When questioned about their past living conditions, the former Miaotang villagers consistently lamented the lack of public roads and how this denied them the chance to develop economic activity in any meaningful way, effectively condemning them to primitive lives cut off from the outside world. Even today, there are no telecommunication signals anywhere near the Wulipo Nature Reserve, where the remnants of Miaotang yet stand.
The relocated households from Miaotang have settled well amongst their new surroundings and have been warmly accepted by their communities. When asked how often they travel back to their original homes, such as for the Chinese New Year, many had not returned for a number of years due to the arduous journey and lack of people who remain there.
Yang Zhen, a now 34-year-old father of two, moved from Miaotang Township a decade ago with his parents and enjoyed a stakehold in a yak hotpot restaurant in the center of Wushan City. When asked to recall his past living conditions before his family's relocation, there was no hesitancy towards the difficulties they once faced.
"Life was extremely difficult for us. The cliff edge roads leading out of Miaotang were perilous, and a journey to Wushan City took the best part of a day."
One poignant childhood memory was suffering a fever one night and the ordeal his mother experienced as she carried him on foot to find the local doctor.
"We lived in a mudbrick house with a roof that leaked. One night when I suffered a fever, my mother carried me on her back for two hours on foot and sobbed as we looked for the local doctor out of hours. Miaotang didn't even have electricity until 2011, so you can imagine how difficult life was.'
Following his family's relocation to Pinghe Village, Yang first labored in factories that produced drinks and shoes but found the wages too low to raise a family adequately. Later, he gained ample experience in the catering sector and reached the point where he could purchase a stakehold in a successful restaurant business in the center of Wushan City.
Despite the initial challenges of adapting to city life after his family's move from the remote Wushan mountains, Yang still recalls the acute desire he felt when offered the chance to relocate from Miaotang Township, a move that has been powerfully vindicated by the higher standard of living he now enjoys.
"When we were offered the chance to move away from Miaotang, we couldn't leave soon enough, and anywhere was a better option than staying behind. It was difficult for us to adapt to our new environment, being from the remote countryside, but now life is much better. We have a modern home, a dependable livelihood, and my two children receive a good education at the local school here in Wushan City.'
Dachang Township was one of many destinations where the Miaotang villagers settled in Wushan County, as well as neighboring Wuxi County and Hubei Province. (Photograph- James Alexander)
Liu Guangming is a 51-year-old trained general practitioner who was first offered the prospect of leaving Miaoxiang back in 2007. He now lives in the picturesque village of Xianqiao, with appealing bright facades and expansive views from across the hillsides. His preference for Xianqiao mainly stemmed from its vicinity to Wushan City, a mere half-hour drive on the local modern standard road system.
As a third-generation doctor specializing in Chinese medicine, he began studying for his license at the age of 17, when he attended a polytechnic institution in Wanzhou. On his return to Miaoxiang, he recalled the conditions he faced on a daily basis.
'There was no hospital in Miaotang or even a clinic like here in Xianqiao Village. We could only work from home or make house calls. Medical equipment was very basic, and we just had basic tools, such as for measuring blood pressure and sugar levels."
Liu had no difficulty settling into the local community of Xianqiao Village, thanks to the warm reception from local residents and the fact that there are fellow villagers from Miaotang who also relocated here. He now runs a well-stocked clinic about twenty meters across his communal courtyard and receives a steady income with further incentives based on the number of patients he treats.
His yearly earnings of around 100,000 yuan mean he can lead a comfortable life in the village, yet he still retains a certain nostalgia for his hometown in the remote mountainsides.
"The people of Xianqiao have been very welcoming towards us. On top of my wages as a general practitioner, I also receive extra stipends worth around 400 yuan a month for treating more patients. Although there's no comparison with life in Xianqiao, I still have a fondness for my hometown and have traveled back to Miaoxiang occasionally over the years." Stories of newfound prosperity abound.
The success of poverty alleviation in China cannot be explained through simply the expenditure. A cornerstone of this endeavor has always been to provide rural communities with the opportunity to take matters of prosperity into their own hands. As many countryside banners and slogans continually emphasize, prosperity is reaped from the efforts you sow.
While investment and social safety nets have provided rural communities with the solid foundations of high-quality infrastructure, the issues of medical coverage and education fees have been resolved so that people needn't fall into debt-driven poverty.
Once these conditions are in place, rural dwellers can then train and seek employment in a wide range of industries, such as rural tourism, cooperatives, or skilled trades.
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