China Wants to Solve Poverty, but Its Own Officials Are Undermining the Efforts

Party officials routinely embezzle poverty relief funds

A man preparing beans outside his house in a village near the Yellow River in Lankao County, Henan Province, on Sept. 28, 2017. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

Lifting people out of poverty is Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature project. His goal is to turn the whole of China into a “xiaokang” society by 2020—a society where people lead comfortable lives with their material needs met.

However, Party officials have found ways to swindle government funding meant for the poor—making the official slogan all the much harder to achieve.