The book 'China: Wall Against Poverty' first appeared in China in 2023 and has now been published in Argentina by Ediciones Corregidor. In it, over 27 chapters, Restivo and Ng offer the history of China's fight against poverty, its strategies, its motivations, and how it is currently working to ensure no steps backward, according to a chronicle of the presentation that reached the Argentine News Agency via Xinhua.
The book was presented on Wednesday in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, with a focus on how the Asian country managed to eradicate extreme poverty and the lessons Argentina could learn from this successful experience. The authors clarified, however, that this is not about imitating the Chinese social model, but rather adopting some aspects of the patriotism, solidarity, people-centered development, and organization with which China has advanced to a stage of well-being that is undeniable for its people.
Restivo told Xinhua that "China's poverty alleviation plan, which lifted 800 million people out of poverty, has been a remarkable fact in human history."
The presentation, held in Buenos Aires on December 21, featured words from the book's co-authors, journalists Gustavo Ng and Néstor Restivo, as well as testimonies from the book's editor, Paula Pampin of Ediciones Corregidor, and the author of the preface, researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) Fortunato Mallimaci.
Over several years and through various trips to different regions of China, Restivo and Ng investigated how the Chinese government managed to lift 800 million people out of poverty until it announced the elimination of extreme poverty, which occurred at the end of 2020.
"The program in China, as told in the book, has a multidisciplinary approach, looking house by house at what families need, and it is multi-actor, because the entire society, through the Government, the Party, and Academia, has been mobilized to achieve this incredible phenomenon," added Restivo.
Ng, for his part, highlighted that "Western socialism seeks the elimination of poverty out of a humanist conviction, while Chinese socialism does so through benevolence as the pragmatic action of benefiting not all of humanity in the abstract, but real people, starting with parents, children, relatives, family, neighborhood, and community."
The 299-page book presents the reality of poverty alleviation in China, highlighting the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the forefront of the fight against poverty. With data and concrete cases from multiple trips to China to address poverty reduction projects on the ground, the work includes various strategies, including those related to agricultural, industrial, and artisanal productivity, tourism, social welfare, education, and rural revitalization.
Mallimaci, in turn, specified that the book "shows how the articulation and planning of the State, of society, the broad mobilization of the parties, especially the CPC, of officials, and of local and provincial communities over several years achieved the resounding success of eliminating extreme poverty."
"No country has done that in such a short time and with so many people," he noted.
