Rural China: Part 1 - Introduction

Over the past three decades, China has made sustained progress in raising the standard of living of its rural population. Using China's previous definition the number of people living below the poverty line in rural areas declined from 250 million in 1978 to 27 million in 2010. Last week the government redefined the poverty line from a net yearly income of 1,196 RMB to 2,300 RMB and in doing so added 100 million rural residents deemed poor and able to claim poverty subsidies. In this first part of a series D J Clark explains the five stages of rural development undertaken by the Chinese government in the last 30 years.