Hong Kong – In recent years, the Chinese government has taken actions to assist the poor, making it a top priority. However, the poverty line set by the Chinese government is approximately one-thirteenth the standard set by the World Bank. China’s poverty line of 0.2 U.S. dollars per person daily should be reevaluated.

On January 8, 2005, China Central Television reported, “In 2004, aid for the poor in rural China made a significant change for the better. Three million people have escaped poverty, the highest number in five years.” Yet, even at the poverty line of 0.2 U.S. dollars daily, only 40 percent, or eight cents, is available for personal consumption. In comparison, the standard set by the World Bank is one dollar per day for living expenses. Thus, when calculated by the daily cost of living, the Chinese government’s poverty line is about one-thirteenth of the World Bank’s.

According to a January 9 China Radio International Online report, nearly forty percent of Chinese people’s earnings are paid with goods instead of money, further complicating the issue. The items an employer doles out in lieu of wages many not even be of use to employees. Another twenty percent of their income is used for work-related expenditures, leaving only 40 percent of their total income for living expenses.

At a press conference held by the World Bank on March 23, 2004, Liu Jian, deputy director of China’s State Council Aid-the-Poor Development Office, announced that the country’s poverty population had dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 29 million in 2004. However, at the same press conference, the vice president of the World Bank said the Chinese poverty population had dropped from 634 million in 1981 to 210 million in 2004. The number of Chinese citizens below the poverty line that the World bank calculated was more than seven times higher than the figure the Chinese government presented.

Furthermore, if the Chinese government had used a daily standard of 0.3 U.S. dollars per individual, just 10 cents more, the number below its poverty standard would have been 90 million, tripling the estimate. “Our country’s poverty standard is very low. Those who have escaped poverty are not necessarily stable financially,” Liu said.

According to a The Beijing News report, in 2003 the income of 14.6 million of China’s poor rose above the government’s poverty line, but another 15.4 million citizens returned to poverty due to illness, natural disaster or a lack of education. Thus, many of those who the government states have escaped from destitution are actually financially vulnerable and move back and forth over the line.

And to truly move out of poverty, one must have adequate food and shelter. Yet many in China who are above the poverty line do not have sufficient food and shelter.

The Beijing News has also reported on a Health Ministry of China study that indicatged half of the country’s farmers cannot afford to go to a doctor when they are sick. In China’s mid-west regions, sixty to eighty percent of the population dies at home because they cannot afford any medical care. This may be a truer measure of poverty in China than the government’s standard.