Poverty elimination: An innate component of contemporary basic concept of human rights

By Wang Linxia
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail CSHRS, November 6, 2009
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4.2.2 China has actively made contributions to international poverty alleviation when it is committed to solving its domestic poverty problems. In the background of financial crisis, China is heavily burdened with its own poverty alleviation tasks, but it is still active in making contributions to international poverty alleviation. Before 2008, China has cancelled the debts of 46 the least developed countries, which totaled more than 40 billion RMB. At the same time, it had provided more than 200 billion RMB assistance for developing countries. In the face of the financial crisis, the Chinese Government has also promised to cancel all the debts owned by least developed countries that had been paid off to China by the end of 2008. And also, China is among the first group of countries that donated 30 million US dollars aid funds to the International Food and Agriculture Organization. The assistance from China is attached with no political conditions, meanwhile, it will not respond to the request of some countries to attach any political conditions to its assistance. So, China is a role model in such practices.

4.3 The Future Poverty Alleviation Task of China Is Arduous China has gained a historical achievement in its poverty alleviation, but its future task is still arduous, and the situation is still serious. On the one hand, in accordance with the law of "diminishing marginal utility", the remaining deprived population will meet more difficulties and higher costs in poverty elimination, for most of the remaining population in poverty live in remote areas where natural conditions are especially atrocious, such as the Tibetan Plateau, the northwest drought areas, the desertized areas, the karst areas, the mountainous areas along the borders of Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces, and the inland bordering areas. In those places, survival environments are horribly bad, infrastructure is backwards, social development is lagging behind, public services are unavailable, and endemic diseases are frequent and serious. So the poverty alleviation over there means an enormous difficulty. At the same time, there is an acute problem that the population who has preliminarily shaken off poverty becomes deprived once again. The tendency of increasing disparities between urban and rural areas, different regions, and different social groups has not been sufficiently controlled. In a word, poverty alleviation and development are still facing tough challenges in China.

The present data of deprived population in China is calculated in accordance with the criterion of China itself. If calculated in reference to the UN minimum standard of one US dollar per capita daily consumption, the total deprived population of China is no less than 200 million.

On all accounts, poverty alleviation requires the international community to hold together, co-operate and show more solicitude. Especially, the international community needs to improve their cognition and identity that poverty alleviation is a basic point of human rights, and strengthen their support for poverty elimination. Developed countries should show more understanding of and give more support for the poverty alleviation in developing countries, and make more contributions. We recognize and emphasize that the concept, guarantee and practices of human rights are dynamic and progressive; meanwhile, we are convinced that the international community will finally come to a consensus that poverty alleviation is a basic piece of human rights, for poverty alleviation is a foundation for social justice and world harmonious development after all.

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