China’s first poverty-alleviation village began with a journalist’s letter
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In 1984, journalist Wang Shaoju of Fuding, China, discovered extreme poverty in the village of Xiashanxi while reporting from the Fujian province.
He wrote an open letter detailing the hardships, homes with thatched roofs, families lacking basic necessities, and sent it to a regional newspaper. After initial resistance, the letter reached the national People’s Daily, which published it and spurred government action.
The publication of Wang’s letter led to a 1984 notice from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council outlining a plan to help impoverished areas. This marked the beginning of a national anti-poverty campaign. Xi Jinping, then a county director, read the letter and later visited the remote communities himself. Over time, the approach to poverty alleviation in Xiashanxi evolved. An initial decade focused on direct aid, food, materials, and livestock, proved insufficient.
Later, villagers were relocated to more accessible land. Finally, the village developed its own sustainable economy through ecotourism, tea cultivation, and agricultural cooperatives, reducing the poverty rate from 80% in the 1980s to 1% by 2015. Today, Chixi is officially recognized as China’s First Village of Poverty Alleviation.
