Millions in poverty as China booms

From New Zealand TV
Some 26 million rural Chinese live in absolute poverty, earning less than $80 a year, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday, despite China becoming the world's fastest-growing major economy.

Another almost 50 million peasants were "low-income" earners, the semi-official China News Service quoted Civil Affairs Minister Li Xueju as saying.

People who earned below 668 yuan ($80) a year fell into the first group, and those who made between 668 and 924 yuan were in the low-income group, a Web site affiliated with the National Bureau of Statistics said.

The widening gap between rich and poor and rampant official corruption have made protests and riots increasingly common in China.

Communist Party leaders, wary of the potential for social unrest, have declared war on poverty and pledged to narrow the wealth gap.

In the cities, where the benefits of economic reforms in the past 26 years are most visible, 22 million people still relied on subsistence allowances from the government, Li said.

China's standard of abject poverty is much lower than the international definition which puts income at less than $1 a day, the plight of about 140 million Chinese.

Of China's population of 1.3 billion people, nearly two thirds live in rural areas.

Li vowed to establish "the basic framework of a new social aid system for the extremely poor people in 90 per cent of the provinces by the end of 2005".

He did not elaborate.

China lifted 224 million people out of absolute poverty between 1978 and 2004, according to official figures.