The Trouble With China’s Anti-Poverty Efforts

The 550 residents of Jianxin, a village in a picturesque valley three hours’ drive from Beijing, used to dwell in ramshackle houses perched on steep hills. The summer’s heavy rains often caused floods and mudslides, making the roads impassable and leaving the villagers stranded for weeks. That’s until Beijing classified Jianxin as “unfit to live” and started moving its residents into a new apartment complex of 200-plus units, with a health clinic, a day care center, and a landscaped enclosure dubbed the Courtyard of Happiness.

There’s no question the government’s 60 million yuan ($8.8 million) investment has transformed the lives of the 163 families that have been relocated since construction wrapped up in 2016. Yet gratitude wasn’t the predominant sentiment expressed by Jianxin’s residents when this reporter paid them a visit in May. Many were angry over the lack of transparency on how the money was spent, worried about a lack of jobs, and upset about a yawning wealth gap between them and some of their neighbors.