China’s poverty-busting policy goes global; Europe holds the line against Huawei
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China is stepping up efforts to promote and spread its poverty alleviation policy abroad.
Lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty is the party-state’s strongest claim to legitimacy — and has drawn plaudits from outsiders. But it also involves erasure of minority cultures (especially Tibetan and Uyghur), forced labor and political indoctrination (see this critique from the Economist.)
Three international publishing houses have signed contracts to translate and publish eight books hailing the merits of the scheme. Uzbekistan’s government (which also backs China’s Chinese Covid vaccine) announced it would begin a China-funded research project to see how it could implement a similar anti-poverty approach. CGTN recently highlighted “lessons for Africa” in the Chinese scheme.
Why it matters: Poverty-busting could be the next big element in Chinese economic diplomacy, especially as infrastructure efforts and technology exports run into difficulty (see next items).