Ding Heng
When China completed its historic eradication of absolute poverty in late 2020, there was a great sense of pride in the country. However, that was only part of the picture. Not everyone noticed another key message from China’s leadership at the time: shaking off poverty is not the finish line but the starting point of a new endeavor.
In 2014, China published a list of over 800 counties deemed as impoverished, and all of them had been removed from the list by 2020. From 2020 to 2025, those places’ rural households, where poverty once concentrated in, saw their disposable income grow nearly 48%, outpacing the 42.7% increase of nationwide rural households in the same period. This steady growth tells us that China isn’t complacent and remains deeply committed to further improving the livelihoods of people that have been lifted out poverty.
More than five years on, China’s policy has shifted from radical poverty alleviation to long-term poverty prevention. In particular, China’s agricultural modernization and rural revitalization strategies are playing a crucial role in cementing its poverty alleviation gains. In China’s context, the sustainability of poverty alleviation will face questions if there is no effort to boost its agricultural and rural economy.
In agricultural sector, the comprehensive mechanization rate is a key indicator of production efficiency. As of 2025, this rate had reached more than 76% in China, up from slightly over 60% in 2014.In some advanced economies such as the United States, agricultural mechanization rate is above 90%, so there still seems to be room for China to make further improvement. That said, the existing rate is a clear sign that China has profoundly modernized its agricultural industry.
Traditionally, China’s mountainous regions were seen as unfit for agricultural mechanization, and low productivity made poverty more prevalent in those regions. In the present day, things are changing thanks to smart technologies. For example, drones are being more widely used in terrace farming. The Xinhua News Agency has reported that a drone operation pilot program is doing local farmers a big favor in an agricultural community in Southwest China’s Chongqing, a place dominated by mountainous landscapes. In terms of fertilization, each drone’s daily work capacity in that program can match what ten farmers could accomplish in about a week of manual labor.
Drones are just one of the many new technologies embraced by Chinese farmers. As another example, smart greenhouses empower farmers to sow and cultivate crops more quickly and effectively. So, it’s probably no surprise when official data show that technologies contributed to nearly two thirds of China’s agricultural output growth in 2025.
Increased productivity is not the only benefit that technologies have brought to China’s agricultural economy. At a time when China has built a world-class logistics network and 95% of villages in the country have access to advanced 5G networks, e-commerce appears to be reshaping China’s agricultural industry by building direct links between rural farmers and urban consumers. In 2025, China’s online retail sales of agricultural products grew 9.9% year on year, and online retail sales of a broader scope of rural goods rose 6.7%. Both are much higher than the 3.7% increase in China’s total retail sales of consumer goods in the same year. A combination of increased productivity and diversified sales channels forms a solid foundation for rural farmers’ income growth.
While agricultural modernization is a key aspect of China’s efforts to bring prosperity to its rural areas, it is undeniable that modern agriculture doesn’t need a huge amount of human labor. In other words, agriculture alone can’t fulfill China’s goals in rural revitalization. This is why, in China’s vision, the services industry should play an equally significant role in the cause.
In the several decades since China embarked on its reform and opening up, the country has witnessed massive flows of migrants from rural to urban areas. Hundreds of millions of rural residents left their homes in pursuit of job opportunities and better life in cities. Currently, however, China’s development has come to a stage where the charm of the countryside has been rediscovered. For urban dwellers, the countryside offers a temporary yet healing escape from a fast-paced urban life, and the younger generation who grow up in cities have a lot of curiosities about rural life. In addition, the Chinese government’s huge investment in rural areas has erased people’s concern that making a trip to the country side could sacrifice certain aspects of modern life such as internet access.
As a result, rural tourism is a booming industry in China. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, rural areas received 707 million tourist visits, accounting for almost 40% of China’s total domestic tourism market in the period. Across the country, there have been numerous stories where tourism has helped transform remote, poverty-stricken villages into sightseeing hotspots boasting moderate prosperity. The northwestern province of Gansu had been a key region targeted by China’s campaign to eradicate extreme poverty, but nowadays it is witnessing steady expansions in rural tourism. Between 2021 to 2025, the number of tourists visiting Gansu’s rural areas was 1.8 times that of the previous five years, and tourist spending was 2.5 times higher.
Poverty is one of the world’s most persistent challenges. According to a 2024 World Bank report, the proportion of global population living in poverty has remained virtually unchanged since 1990.That’s exactly why China’s poverty alleviation is remarkable. In 1990, 67% of the country’s population lived in extreme poverty. China has not only eradicated that, but also, perhaps more importantly, built a robust system to prevent large-scale relapse into poverty. There are many specific secrets behind China’s achievements, but they essentially come down to long-term commitment, thinking holistically, and policy continuity.
[The author is a Beijing-based radio host and political analyst.]
