Poverty Alleviation by the Army and Armed Police

【Overview】  In 2012, the army and armed police firmly implemented the decisions and instructions of the Party Central Committee, the State Council and  the Central Military Commission. In accordance with the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development and the requirements of the "Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)", taking contiguous poor areas as the main battlefield, focusing on the protection and improvement of people’s livelihood, giving play to their strengths, through human resources support, project support, technology guidance, medical assistance and resources development, the army and armed police carried out poverty alleviation and development work based on local conditions and made a new contribution to the social and economic development and poverty reduction in impoverished regions. Army units above the corps level organized a careful inspection on the fixed-point poverty alleviation work and key-problem tackling for poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas by the army, improved the poverty alleviation planning, made innovations to the working mode, implemented the relevant responsibilities and measures and further increased efforts on fixed-point poverty alleviation. They adjusted the number of twinned impoverished counties, towns and villages from 47, 215 and 1470 respectively to 63, 547 and 2856, and newly set up more than 3,600 contacts points for poverty reduction.. In the anti-poverty work, all troops in actively advocated the party's policies to enrich people, provided counterpart support for grassroots party organizations, supported infrastructure construction and ecological environment protection including rural road building, farmland improvement, drinking water projects and small watershed management, helped cultivate competitive industries including planting and breeding, supported the development of science, education, cultural and health industry, and successively lifted more than 180,000 people out of poverty.

【Field research and supervision】  Jia Ting'an, Deputy Head of LGOP and Deputy Director of the General Political Department (GPD) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) headed a working group to carry out field research on the army’s participation in fixed-point poverty alleviation and key-problem tackling for poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas of Anhui and Guizhou in accordance with the relevant decisions and instructions of the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission. The working group visited the poor areas, carried out field research and gave instructions on the relevant work, and required the troops to further play their advantages and increase efforts for poverty reduction to do more practical things to benefit the people and solve people’s difficulties and lift more people out of poverty as soon as possible in accordance with the overall deployments of the state on poverty alleviation and development under the principle of doing our best to meet local needs and satisfy the masses. According to the work arrangements of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the working group paid a special visit to Dingxi City of Gansu Province and Xingyi City of Qianxinan Prefecture in Guizhou Province to participate in the kick-off meeting of the regional development and poverty alleviation in Liupan Mountain Area and the Yunnan – Guangxi - Guizhou rocky desertification area. During the kick-off meeting of the regional development and poverty alleviation in Wumeng Mountain Area, Qinba Mountain Area and border areas of western Yunnan, relevant leaders of the Mass Work Office of PLA General Political Department carefully listened to the views and suggestions of military departments in the contiguous poor areas, guided the troops to further adjust and improve the poverty alleviation and development planning and develop specific measures to make steady progress in the poverty alleviation of the contiguous impoverished areas.  

【Infrastructure construction】 Giving full play to their advantages of tight organization and strong assault force, the army successively organized more than 2.08 million officers and men as well as militia reservists to participate in the improvement of farmland of more than 300,000 mu and the construction of rural roads of 24,000 km and small rural irrigation projects of 6260 km, laying a solid foundation for the development of impoverished regions. The General Staff Operations Department coordinated six western provinces (autonomous regions) including Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan and Guangxi to arrange 440 million yuan for the construction of border duty roads of 700 kilometers and more than 30 bridges, creating favorable conditions for the development of border areas. Lanzhou and Chengdu Military Region actively supported the project of "housing construction to enrich the people and resettlement to vitalize animal husbandry" in Taxkorgan County of Xinjiang and the settlement behavior of herdsmen in the Tibetan areas of Ganzi and Aba Prefecture in Sichuan Province, and transported 83,000 tons of cement and other building materials for the herdsmen, effectively promoting the infrastructure construction for housing projects of local area. In 2012, Water Supply and Engineering Regiment of Beijing Military Area dug 32 wells in the main landing site of Shenzhou spacecraft in Siziwang Banner of Inner Mongolia, effectively solving the drinking water problem of more than 7,300 herdsmen and 253,000 heads of livestock in surrounding areas.

【Poverty alleviation by education】 All troops continue to actively supported the development of basic education in old revolutionary bases, minority regions, poor and remote areas through the "1 +1" donations for poor students, the construction of "Loving Bayi Schools" and participation in the " Spring Bud Program", and newly built and rebuilt 430 schools. The officers and men donated more than 76 million yuan to subsidize 82,000 needy students, and donated more than 46,000 teaching facilities. Yushu Bayi School for Orphans and Bayi Vocational and Technical School in Qinghai Province set up by the army and armed police have been put into use. Covering an area of more than 80,000 square meters, the new school buildings can accommodate more than 4800 students. Officers and soldiers of the Air Force donated 12 million yuan to set up two "Blue Sky Spring Bud Schools" in the western impoverished areas, opened 32 "Blue Sky Spring Bud Girls Classes" and donated 1610 students from needy families. The Second Artillery Force of the PLA carried out the activity of "Rocket Troops Scholarship" and increased the number of impoverished minority students of Xinjiang University, Qinghai University, Yunnan University and Lanzhou University receiving subsidies from 150 to 300. Lanzhou Military Region continued to support the development of education in Tibetan areas of Qinghai, invested 40 million yuan to help three rural primary and secondary schools set up new teaching buildings and purchase relevant teaching facilities, making these schools the demonstration schools of local area.

【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】 Giving full play to their strengths and resources in education, personnel, technology and information, relying on the training bases, training units and “Home of Young Militia”, the military academies, research institutes and technical units held more than 5600 practical technical trainings, trained more than 426,000 backbone technicians and supported the development of more than 2500 competitive industries with local characteristics. Troops 63820 of People's Liberation Army General Armament Department implemented five provincial anti-poverty projects and set up kiwifruit demonstration base of 500 mu in Qingquan Village, Tongkou Town of Beichuan County, exploring a new path for the masses to shake off poverty. Troops of PLA Second Artillery Force in poor areas invested more than 2.7 million yuan to hold 25 trainings on scientific and technological knowledge and machine repairing, donated more than 5600 technology books and helped local residents develop six competitive industries with local characteristics. Giving play to the advantages of army farms and station troops to open up the wasteland, the Tibetan Military Forces held more than 700 training courses for more than 20,000 farmers and herdsmen in ten farming bases of Yadong and Jiangzi. Gansu military forces developed more than 150 featured poverty relief projects for over 2100 impoverished households of 120 poor villages. Inner Mongolia Armed Police Corps helped Bayan Hanggai Gacha introduce high-quality cattle and sheep breeds to expand the scale of farming, increasing per capita annual income of herdsmen by 2000 yuan.

【Poverty alleviation by medical and health service】 108 hospitals of the whole army continued to increase counterpart support for 130 county hospitals in western poor areas and the medical treatment and public health units below the corps level continued to provide counterpart support for 1283 township hospitals. In 2012, we trained more than 10,000 medical workers for the recipient hospitals, organized 7598 teaching rounds, surgical  clinic teaching and seminars, donated more than 820 medical instruments and devices, guided 286 research projects and promoted the application of 1421 projects with new technology, improving the level of medical diagnosis and therapy of local hospitals. The PLA General Hospital, Navy General Hospital, Air Force General Hospital, General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, the Armed Police General Hospital and the affiliated hospitals of the Second, Third and Fourth Military Medical University continued to participate in the activity of medical treatment for one thousand poor minority children with congenital heart disease and successively rescued more than 12,000 children with congenital heart disease in 22 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) including Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, etc.

【Helping the poor】 Targeting at the lonely elderly, orphans, people with disabilities and rural poor families in their activities of helping the poor, the troops often take the initiative to deliver them the government’s care and soldiers’ love. 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, gave priority to these people in the allocation of poverty alleviation resources and workforce, delivered train, oil, clothing and other daily necessaries to them and helped solve their practical difficulties. Lanzhou Military Region carried out the activities of "showing love for empty-nest elderly, left-behind children and vulnerable groups", mobilized officers and soldiers to provide counterpart support for 5200 childless elderly people, orphans and people with disabilities, provide housekeeping and medical services for them on holidays and carry out recreational activities. They raised more than 2.3 million yuan of aid funds, donated more than 7800 sets of living, medical, stationery and sport equipment to 113 seniors’ homes and charity houses and helped them improve the infrastructure conditions. An infantry brigade of Field Army 47 contracted the counterpart support for four seniors’ homes and one school for orphans through “arranging one troupe and one cadre for one orphan”. An armored brigade provided "quaternity" counterpart support for "Hetong Apartments for the Elderly" in Chengcheng of Shaanxi Province, integrating material, medical, cultural and spiritual services, highly praised by local party committees, governments and people of all nationalities.

(People's Liberation Army General Political Department)