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To show this, the table below gives the number of those in China and the world living on less than the two standard measures used by the World Bank to measure poverty. These are the criteria for extreme poverty, an expenditure of less than $1.25 a day ($37.5 a month) and those living in poverty - expenditure of $2 day ($60 a month).

In 1981, according to World Bank data, 972 million people in China were living on an expenditure of less than $37.50 a month. By 2008 this had been reduced to 173 million, by 2009 it fell to 157 million. Consequently, 662 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty in China in the 27 years up to 2008 and 678 million by 2009.

In contrast the number of people living in such extreme poverty outside China increased by 50 million between 1981 and 2008 - the number of people emerging from poverty was less than the population increase. China was consequently responsible for 100 percent of the reduction of the number of people living in extreme poverty in the world.

Analysing those living on US$60 a month or less, still a very low figure, the trend is even more striking. The number of people in China living on this amount or less fell from 972 million in 1981, to 395 million in 2008, to 362 million in 2009. The number living on expenditure of $60 a month or less in China fell by 577 million by 2008, and by 610 million by 2009.

In contrast the number of those living at this level of poverty in the world outside China rose from 1,548 million in 1981 to 2,057 million in 2008 - an increase of 509 million. Again, China accounted for the entire reduction in the number of people in the world living at this level of poverty.

Country  name	1981	2008	2010*	Change 1981-2008	Change 1981-2010*
Number living on expenditure of under US$2 a day (million)
China	972	395	362	-577	-610
East Asia excluding China	302	249	n/a	-53	n/a
Latin America	84	69	59	-15	-25
Eastern Europe	19	6	6	-13	-13
Middle East & North Africa	52	44	40	-8	-12
Sub-Saharan Africa	284	580	603	296	319
South Asia	807	1,109	1,072	302	265
Total	2,520	2,452	n/a	-68	n/a
Total excluding China	1,548	2,057	n/a	509	n/a
Number living on expenditure of under US$1.25 a day (million)
East Asia excluding China	229	105	n/a	-124	n/a
Latin America	42	36	31	-6	-11
Eastern Europe	4	1	2	-3	-2
Middle East & North Africa	17	9	8	-8	-9
Sub-Saharan Africa	202	563	418	361	216
South Asia	566	402	499	-164	-67
Total	1,895	1,289	n/a	-606	n/a
Total excluding China	1,060	1,116	n/a	56	n/a
*China figure is for 2009
Source: Calculated from World Bank World Development Indicators

It is therefore almost impossible to exaggerate the contribution of China's economic development, not only to its own people but to the welfare of the whole of humanity. Without China there would have been literally no reduction in the number of world's people living in poverty.

The gigantic impact of this on human well-being is not only in its direct effect on personal income and expenditures. It is also in its indirect consequences for human welfare. To take simple examples:

•  Life expectancy in China is nine years longer than in India - a country which at the end of the 1940s had a higher GDP per capita than China.

•  Measured per thousand people China has 66 percent more nurses and midwives and 160 percent more doctors than India.

•  In China the literacy rate for women aged 15-24 is 99 percent, on the latest World Bank data, while for India it is 74 percent.

•  The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births is 12 in China compared to 44 in India.

The direct and indirect effect of bringing people out of poverty is also the greatest contribution that can be made to human rights, China's bringing over 600 million out of poverty means no other country in the world remotely matches China's contribution to human rights.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/johnross.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn

 

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