MCLC: 2 million to be relocated in Guizhou

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: 2 million to be relocated in Guizhou
***********************************************************

Source: The Telegraph (11/1/12):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9648698/Two-million-to
-be-moved-in-one-of-largest-relocations-in-Chinese-history.html

Two million to be moved in one of largest relocations in Chinese history
Two million people are to be moved from their isolated mountain homes as
part of one of the single largest relocations in recent Chinese history.
Tom Phillips reports.
By Tom Phillips, Wuling mountains, Guizhou province

It is billed as the "final offensive" against extreme poverty in China's
poorest province.

Between now and 2020, two million people are to be moved from their
isolated mountain homes in Guizhou province as part of one of the single
largest relocations in recent Chinese history.

It is a gargantuan task and one that will cost billions. But provincial
authorities claim resettlement is the only way to eliminate the grinding
rural poverty that continues to blight China's countryside even after one
of the greatest economic booms in human history.

"Even if we build roads to reach them, provide drinking water to them and
work to alleviate poverty there for another 50 years, the problem might
not be addressed," Guizhou's party secretary, Zhao Kezhi, said earlier
this year.

"[The mountains] … barely provide the conditions for sustaining life."

Decades of near-double-digit growth have propelled millions out of rural
poverty, as migrant workers flocked to China's cities, pumping remittances
back into the countryside, and the central government poured billions into
rural infrastructure.

But all is still not well in rural China and as the curtains come down on
the 10-year era of President Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao, alarm bells
are ringing in Beijing about entrenched poverty and what many say is a
growing wealth gap between urban and rural China.

A recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that the
urban-rural wealth divide had grown 26 per cent since 1997 and 68 per cent
since 1985.

Last year, rural dwellers had an average annual disposable income of
around £690, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, compared
to £2,170 for their urban counterparts.

"China has succeeded in making a bigger cake," state news agency Xinhua
recently noted. "The problem now is how to divide it more equally."

The wealth gap is immediately clear in Guizhou province, where politicians
pushing the relocation scheme say some 11.5 million people live below the
poverty line, with around two million in "chronic poverty".

Outside the airport in its capital, Guiyang, a white-gloved chauffeur
ushers a woman and her shopping bags into a black Rolls-Royce. But head
northeast, deep into the Wuling mountain range, and a very different China
is on show.

Declared a key anti-poverty "battlefield" by authorities, the Wuling
region's isolated mountain villages seem a world away from the spectacular
skylines of Shanghai or Beijing.

Sitting under the tarpaulin-roof of his improvised schoolhouse, Long
Qingfu, the 37-year-old chief and stopgap teacher of Longtan village, said
relocation could not happen soon enough. "Longtan needs poverty relief. We
have very bad roads, you see. We have no tap water."
Mr Long pointed to the wooden wall behind him, onto which lessons were
chalked in yellow and pink scrawl. "We have no blackboard," he explained.

Home to around 570 members of the Miao ethnic group, Longtan has a long
and proud history. But despite their emotional ties to the land, many
locals are ready to abandon their ancestral homes.

"We want to move," said Long Jinhua, 62, who was caring for her
two-year-old granddaughter in the wooden house her family has called home
for two centuries. Mrs Long said rural conditions had improved during the
Hu-Wen era; roads had connected Longtan to the outside world for the first
time, the price of grain had risen and her family had purchased a
television set. But life was still a struggle. "I want to go to the city
to experience a different life," she confessed, suggesting it might also
help her two sons find wives.

For a glimpse of what awaits them, Longtan's villagers can travel 65 miles
to Songtao, another county of ethnic Miao people, where relocation is
already under way.

A roadside propaganda sign at the entrance to Yajia town reads: "TRY TO
BUILD SONGTAO INTO A MODEL PLACE OF POVERTY RELIEF PROJECTS!"

On Ethnic Customs Street, Li Zhenze and his wife Chen Qunying showed off
their brand-new second-floor apartment, fitted with all the trappings of
urban life.

Natives of the nearby Ma'an village, they moved to Yajia with their three
children in September, paying for the apartment with a government subsidy
and personal savings.

"It's better than the countryside – but there is no land," said Mr Li, now
unemployed and grappling with how to support his family in their new urban
surroundings. Outside, an elderly settler used a wooden rake to dry grain
on a brand-new concrete basketball court.

Ma Qingxin, the local Communist Party chief, said relocation had
dramatically improved villagers' lives.

"Relocation is one effective way of poverty alleviation," he said,
pointing to an industrial park and manganese processing plant being built
near Yajia to provide jobs for the new arrivals. "Living is about [having]
clothes, food, a home and access to transport. [But relocation] at least
changes their poor living conditions. It is much better than living in the
mountains."
Analysts agree that the next generation of Chinese leaders must take
urgent action to address the wealth gap, viewed as a potential trigger for
unrest.

"Hu Jintao did not do much [to stop the] gap increasing," said Mark Wang,
a University of Melbourne scholar and expert in rural China. "The gap is
still huge and people feel angry. It's very dangerous for China. People
expect [incoming president] Xi Jinping to fix the problem."

But for all the fanfare surrounding Guizhou's anti-poverty drive, not all
see relocation as the best way to address the problem.
Some believe relocations exacerbate social tensions and can leave
villagers even worse off, thrusting them into an unfamiliar world for
which they were ill-prepared.

Several villagers even said they were unsure if their relocation was
related to poverty relief or simply to clear the way for money-spinning
infrastructure projects.

“Looking back at large scale population resettlements… since 1949, none
have been very successful, and those started with very good intentions,”
said Jing Jun, a sociologist from Beijing’s Tsinghua University and a
leading authority on relocations.
“I don’t know what will happen but there will be unintended
consequences... Social engineering should really go through screening and
consultation with the local people but I don’t think the government is
willing to do that.”

Prof Wang said that while such resettlements were generally positive, the
views and rights of those being moved needed to be respected.

"You are dealing with people. You are moving people, not cows or animals."

Simply moving people to new areas is not enough if they are not given the
skills and opportunities to fend for themselves.
"If there is no is no dramatic change in the macro-system, if the
distribution of wealth does not happen properly, the rural-urban gap will
continue [to grow] and the rich-poor [divide] will continue," he said.

Such complexities are lost on the children of Longtan village, who are
already gearing up for the move and – their parents hope – for a brighter,
urban future.

Inside their tatty-school house, a student had inscribed one final
farewell onto the wall. "Bye-bye," it read, in English.