China Changes Definition of Poverty to Declare Victory in Fight Against Poverty
BEIJING, CHINA — Chinese president Xi Jinping, 67, is claiming that his country has eradicated extreme poverty despite the fact that most experts do not agree. “I mean, the vast majority of rural areas in China are still really, really, really poor,” a Chinese economist who requested to remain anonymous reported to western news outlets, “They just make slightly more than $1.69 a day now, which is still way less than the globally recognized extreme poverty threshold of $1.90 a day.” President Xi has made it the main priority of his presidency to eradicate extreme poverty in China, but many critics of the long-standing leader have pointed out that he simply changed the definition of poverty in order to achieve his goal. “At first, I thought he was going to kill all of the poor people,” a Chinese farmer from one of the poorest rural areas in China, who requested to remain anonymous, told us in an interview, “but then it became clear that he was just going to make it so that we were a little less poor, still super poor though, and then define that as not being poor anymore. So, I guess I’m glad we didn’t get killed?” In a ceremony on Thursday, President Xi handed out medals, worth more than most of his citizens’ yearly incomes, to key figures in the fight against poverty. Wide income inequalities still exist all throughout the country, but the president has declared victory over the economy and will now focus his efforts back on imprisoning people who think he looks like Winnie The Pooh.