（I）History of Poverty Alleviation and Development

　　Since reform and opening up, the poverty alleviation and development can be roughly divided into three stages.

　　（I）Structural Reform Promotes Poverty Relief (1978-1985)

　　At this stage, China started reform and opening up, abolished the people's communes, established the household contract responsibility system-based dual-level operation system and liberalized the prices of agricultural products and the market. Township enterprises witnessed rapid development, which greatly liberated and developed the productive forces, alleviated the poverty in a large rural area and laid the institutional basis for addressing rural poverty. The rural per capita net income increased 2.6-fold and the number of people living in absolute poverty was reduced from 250 million to 125 million, with an average annual decrease of 17.86 million.

　　（II）Special Programs Promote Poverty Relief (1986-2007)

　　At this stage, the state implemented an organized, planned, large-scale development-oriented poverty reduction, which can be divided into three periods:

　　1986－1993: Start-up period In 1986, the State Council set up a special poverty alleviation agency, developed national poverty line, identified the key counties for national poverty reduction, arranged special funds, issued preferential policies and clearly put forward the guideline of development-oriented poverty alleviation. New progress was made in poverty alleviation. The rural per capita net income of poverty-stricken counties rose from 206 Yuan in 1986 to 483.7 Yuan in 1993 and the number of people living in absolute poverty was reduced from 125 million to 80 million, with an average annual decrease of 6.4 million.

　　1994－2000: Crucial period In 1994, the State Council formulated and promulgated the "Seven-Year Priority Poverty Alleviation Program", which clearly states that China will strive to basically solve the food and clothing problem of 80 million rural poor within seven years. There was a substantial increase in government investment in poverty alleviation and development. The state established the poverty reduction responsibility system featured "four (funds, tasks, rights and responsibilities)-to-provinces", regulated the fixed-point poverty alleviation of institutions and set up the poverty alleviation cooperation mechanism for the eastern coastal areas to support less developed western regions. Through the joint efforts of the whole nation, by the end of 2000, except those living in the regions under appalling conditions still had no adequate food and clothing, the anti-poverty goals had been basically achieved. The rural per capita net income of poverty-stricken counties increased from 483.7 Yuan in 1993 to 1321 Yuan in 2000, and the number of people living in absolute poverty dropped from 80 million to 32.09 million, with an average annual decline of 6.13 million.

　　2001－2007: Deepening period In 2001, the State Council promulgated and implemented the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)". Since the 16th CPC National Congress, the Central Committee of CPC has proposed to implement the scientific concept of development, developed the scientific thesis of "two trends", the policy of "giving more, taking less and loosening control" and the guideline of "promoting agriculture by industry and promoting rural development by urban growth". Meanwhile, it has continuously issued five "No. 1 Document" to announce a series of major policies and guidelines on promoting the income growth of farmers, enhancing agricultural production capacity, accelerating new rural construction, developing modern agriculture and strengthening the agricultural infrastructure respectively. Based on the poverty reduction through economic growth and special poverty alleviation programs, a "grand pattern of poverty alleviation" integrating industry policy, regional policy and social policy has been gradually formed. As for poverty alleviation and development, the government clearly stated that we must give priority to entire village advancement, labor transfer training and poverty reduction by industrialization, reform the fund management system and improve the working mechanism, and put forward the low-income poverty line as well. As a result, the number of people living in absolute poverty was reduced from 32.09 million to 14.79 million, and the low-income people decreased from 62.13 million to 28.41 million. The average annual decrease of the poor below low-income poverty line was 3.88 million in the first two years and this figure in the next five years was 8.6 million.

　　（III）Two-wheel-drive promotes poverty alleviation(2007-now)

　　In 2007, the rural minimum living security system was established nationwide to make comprehensive institutional arrangements for addressing the basic survival problem of rural poor. In October 2008, the “Decision” of the Third Plenary Session of 17th CPC Central Committee clearly states: we must develop a new poverty line and implement the pro-poor policies comprehensively for the low-income population. Since then, the cause of poverty alleviation has entered the new stage of “two-wheel drive” integrating development-oriented poverty alleviation and social relief.

　　In March 2009, in the government work report, Premier Wen Jiabao further clarified that “we’ll implement the new poverty line this year and comprehensive implement the pro-poor policies for low-income rural residents. The new poverty line will be 1196 Yuan per person and the targets of poverty alleviation will be expanded to 40.07 million. It marks the poverty alleviation and development has entered a new stage.”