Poverty Alleviation by the Army and Armed Police

　　（I）Review of Poverty alleviation Work

　　As an important force for national construction, the army and armed police forces played an important role in advancing the work of poverty alleviation and development in China. In 2011, President Hu Jintao stressed at the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development that we must “give play to the role of the army and armed forces” and “the army and armed forces should actively participate in the fixed-pointed poverty alleviation and bear corresponding responsibility in the anti-poverty work”, which is a guideline for the army and armed forces to participate in and do a good job of poverty alleviation and development at the new stage. Article 29 of the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)” provides that “taking into consideration of local needs, the military and armed police forces should act according to their ability and prioritize their help for poor people who live in localities where they are stationed. They should play an active part in eliminating local poverty and complement local strengths by giving full play to their advantages in strict organization, rapid response as well as outstanding talents, science and technology resources and equipment.”

　　The PLA is a people's army under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China. It is an important task assigned by the party and government to the PLA and the army's fine tradition and bounden duty to participate in poverty alleviation and development, help the poor shake off poverty and promote the economic and social development of poor areas. The leaders of the Central Military Commission and the General Staff Headquarters, General Political Department, General Logistics Department and General Armament Department attach great importance to the poverty alleviation and development work of military and armed forces and made several important instructions. The General Political Department resolutely implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission, conscientiously fulfilled the duties of Deputy Head Unit of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development and made deployments for the army to get involved in anti-poverty work by issuing several documents, making instructions on the army’s political work and the mass work of the military and armed forces. After the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development in 2011, the General Political Department issued the “Circular Concerning the Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the Central Work Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development” and put forward clear requirements on the implementation of the spirit of the important speeches of General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and the central work conference on poverty reduction as well as the implementation of anti-poverty work of the army at the new stage. In accordance with the arrangements and requirements of the Central Military Commission headquarters, based on the actual situation, giving play to their advantages, by developing scientific planning, all military forces actively got involved in the poverty alleviation and development to boost the economic and social development of impoverished regions and increase the income of the poor, achieving good political, economic, military and social benefits.

　　For a long time, bearing in mind the fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, resolutely responding to the call of the party and the state, in accordance with the requirements and deployments of the Central Military Commission headquarters, while defending the security of the motherland and completing the education and training, combat readiness, research and experimentation task, the military and armed police forces actively participated in the national poverty alleviation and development. Especially during the implementation period of the “Seven-year Priority Poverty Alleviation Program (1994-2000)” and the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010)”, based on the actual situation, giving full play to their advantages of strict discipline, strong assault and the advantages in personnel, technology and equipment, the military and armed police forces actively participated in the fixed-pointed poverty alleviation, twinned poverty reduction and entire village advancement to support the technology, education, cultural and health industry of impoverished regions and made remarkable achievements.

　　Over the past decade for the implementation of the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010)”, the military and armed forces established more than 26,000 liaison stations for anti-poverty work, supported the construction of more than 100,000 minor works in poor areas, including farmland and water conservancy construction, rural road building and small watershed governance, planted trees of 35.61 million mu, dug 1119 wells for the masses and lifted more than 2.1 million people out of poverty. In 2009, the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development and the General Political Department jointly issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Poverty Alleviation and Development Work of the Military and Armed Forces” and organized the army to actively get involved in the fixed-point poverty alleviation of 1470 poverty-stricken villages in 215 impoverished towns of 47 poor counties.

1. Conduct poverty alleviation by science and technology. Giving full play to the advantages of military academies, research institutes and technical forces, the army actively transferred scientific and technological achievements to the poverty-stricken areas, supported science and technology projects, publicized scientific and technological knowledge, held practical and skills trainings for the masses, established over 240 technology demonstration zones, support the development of more than 73,000 competitive industries with local characteristics and organized labor skills and labor transfer trainings for more than 6 million person-times, enhancing the self-development capacity of impoverished regions and people.

2. Supports basic education and donate for needy students. The army actively supported the key problem tackling for the basic implementation of nine-year compulsory education and basic elimination of illiteracy among young and middle-aged people in poor areas, carried out the activities of building “Loving Bayi School”, "1 +1" donation program for needy students and the “Spring Bud Program”, supported the development of primary and secondary schools, helped to build more than 1600 primary and secondary schools and subsidized over 210,000 poor students. In 2006, according to the unified deployment of the Central Military Commission headquarters, the military and armed police forces built 112 “Loving Bayi Schools” in the impoverished regions along the route of the Long March and newly built and renovated school buildings of more than 130,000 square meters, improving the school conditions of more than 67,000 primary and secondary school students. From 2008 to 2010, the military and armed police forces set up eight “Loving Bayi Schools” in the disaster areas of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu and newly built school buildings of 192,000 square meters, solving the schooling problem of more than 13,000 students of the disasters areas. From 2009 to 2012, the military and armed police forces set up 57 “Loving Bayi Schools” in the minority areas of Xinjiang and Tibet and newly built and renovated school buildings of more than 110,000 square meters, solving the schooling problem of 300,000 students.

3. Support the development of medical and health services. Based on the backward conditions for medical and health services in poor areas, the PLA organized its 108 hospitals to provide counterpart support for 130 hospitals in western poor counties and designated medical and health units below the corps level to support 1283 township hospitals. Through the support of medical facilities, featured subject opening, and the promotion of medical technology and advanced management methods, the PLA helped the recipient hospitals set up more than 100 advantageous subjects with local characteristics, trained more than 85,000 medical workers and donated more than 6,000 sets of medical equipment, effectively promoting the improvement of medical and health conditions of poverty-stricken areas. The medical units of the PLA have sent more than 3,000 medical teams composed of 20,000 people to provide free medical services for more than 61 million person-times in poor villages.

4. Often carry out poverty alleviation activities. The whole army extensively carried out the activity of "warmth delivery to show love for the poor", regularly organized officers and men to donate money and goods to help solve the pressing problems of the poor. After the snow disaster in South China and Wenchuan Earthquake of Sichuan in 2008 and the severe drought in southwest region, Yushu Earthquake and Zhouqu Debris Flow in 2010, the officers and men donated more than one billion Yuan in cash and 3.52 million sets of quilt and clothing to the disaster areas. The troops’ grassroots units have established a long-term relationship with more than 40,000 needy families and over 8,000 childless elderly people and people with disabilities, often visit and deliver grain, oil, clothing, medicine and other necessities to them.      

　　（II）Poverty Alleviation and Development by the Army and Armed Forces

　　【Overview】 In 2011, the army and armed police seriously implemented the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development and the "Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)". In accordance with the arrangements and requirements of the Central Military Commission headquarters, based on the overall planning for anti-poverty work and the actual situation of the army post, focusing on fixed-point poverty alleviation and the poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties, aiming to help the poor develop production and improve living conditions, the army and armed police formulated scientific planning for the poverty alleviation and development, made steady progress in the anti-poverty work and made a positive contribution to boosting the economic and social development of poor areas and lifting the poor out of poverty.

　　In accordance with the requirements for one provincial military command (armed forces) to support one key county or poor town and one military sub-command to help one poor town or village, the army further identified the objects of poverty reduction, actively participated in the poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas, increased efforts on the poverty alleviation in 1470 impoverished villages of 215 poor towns in 47 poverty-stricken counties, set up more than 4500 liaison stations for the anti-poverty work, supported the establishment of 1890 liaison offices for the new rural construction and lifted 210,000 people out of poverty.

　　【Infrastructure construction】 The army first organized more than 2.1 million officers and men as well as militia and more than 400,000 mechanical vehicles to support the construction of 5300 minor works including farmland and water conservancy construction, rural road building and small watershed governance, dug 388 wells for the masses, and coordinated the allocation of 370 million Yuan to build border duty roads of 690 kilometers and over 20 bridges in Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan and Guangxi, creating favorable conditions for poor people of the border areas to develop production.

　　【Education Poverty Alleviation】The officers and men helped to renovate and newly build 310 schools, donated more than 62 million Yuan to subsidize over 80,000 needy students and donated more than 30,000 sets of teaching equipment and over 70,000 cultural and sports facilities. The 25 “Loving Bayi Schools” set up in the western areas with support from the Central Military Commission headquarters have been put into operation. The army helped build and renovate school buildings of 68,000 square meters and the schools can hold more than 19,000 students now. The activities effectively improved the school conditions of impoverished areas. The army also organized the officers and men to carry out the activity of “book donations for poor areas” and successively donated more than 560,000 books on revolutionary tradition, science and culture to 150 schools in the western poor areas. Two military training institutions in Xinjiang trained 1710 bilingual kindergarten teachers for local areas. 30 troops kindergartens in minority areas of Xinjiang provided bilingual education service and recruited 1338 children of the local masses and cadres, greatly promoting the development of local bilingual education.

　　【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】Giving full play to their strengths and resources, the military academies, research institutes and technical units actively transferred scientific and technological achievements to the poverty-stricken areas, supported science and technology projects and publicized scientific knowledge, achieving good results. Relying on the training bases, training units and “Home of Young Militia”, the army held more than 3600 practical technical trainings for local areas, trained more than 580,000 backbone technicians and supported the development of 510 competitive industries with local characteristics.

　　【Poverty alleviation by medical and health service】The army and armed forces continued to increase counterpart support for 130 county-level hospitals and 1283 township hospitals in western poor counties. In 2011, they trained 5600 medical workers for the recipient hospitals, organized more than 2700 teaching rounds, medical records discussions and seminars, donated more than 1100 medical instruments and devices and provided 79 new technologies including laparoscopic technology for the county-level hospitals of western impoverished counties. The army medical institutions at all levels sent more than 2300 medical teams to deliver free medical services and medicines to the poor on the plateau, border areas and mountain areas, benefiting more than 600,000 people. The Air Force General Hospital, the Armed Police General Hospital, General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, and the affiliated hospitals of the Second, Third and Fourth Military Medical University carried out the activity of charitable help for poor children with congenital heart disease in poverty-stricken areas jointly with the relevant agencies, and provided medical treatment for 11690 minority children with congenital heart disease in 22 regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

　　【Activity of "Warmth Delivery to Show Love for the Poor"】 The officers and men carried out regular donation activities to support the masses in difficulties and successively donated more than 40 million Yuan to the disaster areas and impoverished regions to show their love for the masses in difficulties. The troops’ grassroots units paid regular visits to more than 40,000 poor households with whom they established a long-term relationship, sent condolences to more than 8,000 childless elderly people and persons with disabilities, delivered daily necessaries to them and helped solve their practical difficulties.

　　【Poverty alleviation planning】 After the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development in 2011, the General Political Department issued to the military and armed forces the “Circular Concerning the Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the Central Work Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development” and put forward clear requirements on the implementation of the spirit of the important speeches of General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and the central work conference on poverty reduction as well as the implementation of anti-poverty work of the army at the new stage.

　　At the new stage of poverty alleviation and development, the army and armed police will conscientiously implement the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development and the important instructions of President Hu Jintao, In accordance with the requirements of the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)” and the deployments of the Central Military Commission headquarters, while completing the military struggle preparation-oriented tasks, we’ll adapt ourselves to the new situation and new tasks and make steady progress in the poverty alleviation and development. Under the guidance of the scientific outlook on development, in accordance with the deployments of the overall planning for national poverty alleviation and development and the principle of meeting the needs of local areas and the masses within our reach, we’ll develop scientific planning, carefully organize relevant activities, play our advantages, actively get involved in the anti-poverty work based on local conditions, and cooperate with relevant parties in a new round of poverty alleviation and development to make a greater contribution to the elimination and eradication of poverty and boosting the rapid and sound economic and social development of impoverished regions.

　　First, mainly support the poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties. Taking the 11 contiguous poor areas identified by the central government and Tibet, Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu Province and three prefectures in South Xinjiang as the main battlefield for poverty reduction, according to the state’s overall deployments and the relevant planning developed by the party committee and government of the localities where they are stationed, the army and armed forces actively supported the regional development and poverty alleviation of these areas, vigorously supported the construction of local livelihood projects, helped the masses in land governance to improve the middle and low-yield farmland, supported the construction of small-sized farmland and water conservancy projects and helped the masses to develop breeding, planting, agricultural product processing and red tourism industry relying on local resources, aiming to create conditions for rural development and production and income growth of the poor and fundamentally change the backwardness of these areas.

　　Second, steadily promote the fixed-point poverty alleviation. To resolutely implement the spirit of President Hu Jintao’s instruction – “the army and armed police forces must actively participate in the fixed-point poverty alleviation and bear the corresponding responsibility”, we organized the army to focus on the poverty reduction of 1470 poor villages in 215 poverty-stricken towns of 47 impoverished counties, do a good job of poverty reduction targeting at the key counties for poverty alleviation and development, the poor villages, old revolutionary base areas, minority areas and border areas, actively support the implementation of flood control, soil improvement, road building, electricity and other infrastructure development as well as ecological environmental protection in the poverty-stricken areas and, combined with the water, electricity, road, gas, housing and beautiful environment projects for rural households, helped the masses improve the water pipeline network, kitchens, toilets, pens and living environment to improve the quality of life of the masses.

　　Third, do a good job of development-oriented poverty alleviation. To resolutely implement the development-oriented poverty alleviation, giving full play to their advantages in technology, talent, equipment and infrastructure, the army and armed forces actively supported local poverty alleviation and development to enhance the self-development capacity of poor areas and the masses, vigorously publicized preferential policies to benefit and enrich people, the enterprising spirit and the models of becoming rich by hardworking, and guided the poor to enhance the confidence in poverty reduction relying on themselves. We organized the grassroots party organizations of the army and the grassroots party branches in poor areas to carry out mutual learning and mutual assistance activities, helped strengthen their organization function to make them strong fighting bastions for the poor to shake off poverty and become well-off. We guided the military academies, experimental agencies and research institutes to successfully promote the application methods through technology consulting and patent transfer to promote the industry upgrading and structure optimization of poor areas and provide scientific and technological support for the economic and social development. Troops with certain conditions should organize labor transfer trainings to help the poor master practical techniques such as electronic, communication and repairing skills and enhance their job skills through opening cultural evening classes and organizing practical skills trainings.

　　Fourth, vigorously support the development of social undertakings in poor areas. To promote the long-term development of poverty-stricken areas, the army and armed forces increased support for the development of social undertakings of poverty-stricken areas and strived to promote the equalization of basic public services. We continued the construction of “Loving Bayi School”, the implementation of "1 +1" student-aiding program and the opening up of “Spring Bud Girds Classes” to help children from needy families complete their studies; organized military hospitals to carry out medical poverty reduction, support the work of the county and township hospitals of the twinned poor areas and send regular medical teams to provide free medical services for remote rural areas to improve the medical conditions of the masses or poor areas. We actively support the cultural facility construction in poor villages to enrich the cultural life of the masses; continued to carry out activities of the PLA men in the construction with the civilians, vigorously carried forward the socialist new ideas, new morals and new fashion and guided the masses to establish a scientific, civilized and healthy lifestyle to promote the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilization in poverty-stricken areas.

　　Fifth, actively participate in the construction of ecological environment of poverty-stricken areas. Through concentrated hard work, fixed-pointed contracting and voluntary tree-planting activities, we organized the officers and men as well as militia reservists to participate in the afforestation of barren hills, anti-desertification and wetland conservation work, actively support the construction of northwest grassland desertification control area and southwest rocky desertification prevention area as well as the key ecological projects such as the “Sanjiangyuan” Nature Reserve and the surrounding green belt around the Three Gorges reservoir area, aiming to create a number of PLC Youth Forests and Militia Forests and create conditions for the sustained development of impoverished regions. We actively carried out the activities of creating green camp areas and ecological camps and did a good job of afforestation of the military camps and land to play a leading role in improving local ecological environment.

　　Sixth, organize regular activities of helping the poor. Starting with the most pressing problems and the difficulties that the poor are most concerned about and are most directly related to the poor, we actively helped them solve practical problems, carried out the activity of “warmth-delivery to show love for the poor”, paid regular visits to the masses, the families of revolutionary martyrs and servicemen, disabled revolutionary servicemen, objects of the five-guarantee system and left-behind children in poor areas, aiming to solve difficulties for them and deliver the warmth of party and government and the friendship of the army to the poor.