February 25th, Chinese President Xi Jinping solemnly declared in Beijing: China has achieved a complete victory in the battle of eliminating extreme poverty and created another miracle of China. Not long ago, Afghan ambassador to China Mr.Javed Qaem said: after eight years of continuous struggle, China has successfully lifted nearly 100 million people out of poverty and achieved the goal of comprehensive poverty alleviation as scheduled. This is a great achievement. Afghanistan and China are traditional friendly neighbors. In view of their similarities in history, China’s poverty reduction experience deserves more attention and reference.
Poverty eradication is a systematic project and cannot be achieved overnight. President Xi Jinping summed up China’s key experience in poverty eradication by using “seven insistences” at the commendation conference held on 25th Feb, such as sticking to the leadership of Communist Party of China, adhering to the people centered development thought and persisting in giving full play to the advantages of the socialist system in concentrating on doing great things. From the founding of People’s Republic of China to the reform and opening up, and then to the new era of development, the party and government of China have always regarded striving for the happiness of the people as their original aspiration and put it in a prominent position. In particular, in the past eight years, the Chinese government has put forward a series of policies and measures for targeted poverty alleviation and made remarkable achievements by rolling up our sleeves and going full speed ahead with our work.
As the leader of a great power and the commander in charge of the campaign against poverty, in the past 8 years, Xi Jinping held 7 central meetings, conducted 50 surveys on poverty alleviation and traveled to 14 poverty-stricken areas. In this struggle against poverty, there are also countless extraordinary Chinese people, such as the Secretary of the village party branch who led the villagers to dig out the road to the outside world on the precipice for seven years, the female principal who brightened mountain girls’ hope, the college students who returned to their hometown after graduation to participate in poverty alleviation and agricultural science and technology experts who are committed to poverty alleviation by industrial means. In recent years, a total of 2.8 million assisting cadres have been struggling in the front line of poverty alleviation and more than 1800 of them have given their lives to the cause of poverty alleviation. It can be said that every achievement China has made is the outcome of the hardworking of Chinese people step by step, not the gift of any other country. We would never allow others to discredit it.
As a traditional friendly neighbor of China, Afghanistan has been devastated by war for many years, and the Chinese people have always had the same sense with Afghan people. Now Afghanistan is at a critical moment of ending the war and striding for peace. China firmly supports the efforts of Afghan government and people to seek peace and development and is willing to actively share the experience of poverty alleviation and the dividend of development. Under the joint construction of “Belt and Road”, China and Afghanistan will build a community with shared future. Relying on its geographical and resource advantages, Afghanistan has made initial achievements. After the realization of peace in Afghanistan, there is still a huge space for economic and trade exchanges between China and Afghanistan to be explored. Chinese consumers are also looking forward to tasting more characteristic agricultural and animal husbandry products from Afghanistan, such as big pine nuts, red pomegranate and saffron.
