Name: Shi Yingchuan Student ID：s07321
Research paper supervisor:Dr.Seku Conde
Minzu University of China
2007-2008 Academic Year
 

 
Abstract: Human development is a measurement to evaluate a country’s integrated development, and it has been paid more and more attention by countries all of the world, whatever developed countries or under-developed countries. China is a country with the largest population and the third largest territorial land in the world, its human development condition holds such a special position that it is necessary to take a serious research. In all the factors which used to measuring the human development, poverty is playing a very important role because it is the basic of human existence. With the fast pace of economic growth in past three decades, China has effectively alleviate the poverty in large margin areas. This article will give a brief overview to China’s economic growth and poverty alleviation, and also attempt to analysis the problems arose in this procession.
 
Key Words: Human Development, Poverty, Economic Growth, Health, Environment
 
I. Introduction: Human Development and Economic Growth.
The concept of human development was developed in order to focus attention upon the impact of economic change on human capabilities, such as the capability of living a long life (life expectancy at birth), enjoying good health, and acquiring knowledge, in addition to having the ability to obtain goods and services in general[①]. Human development is concerned with the conditions of life of the entire population, not just the statistical average citizen, and therefore is sensitive to matters of income distribution, poverty, and the situations of women and of minorities.
The term “human development” is not commonly used in China. The preferred term is “social development”, which is understood as the end in improved popular well-being for which economic development is the means. In practice, and in the range of issues included under their auspices, the two terms are very similar in meaning, except that “social development” perhaps connotes a greater emphasis on the well-being of the community and “human development” on the capabilities of the individual.
Nowadays, all of the world’s advanced nations have made human development of their own countries and item of top priority on their development agenda. The reason for this is follow: at the preliminary stage of economic development, the majority of people in the society find it difficult to feed and clothe themselves. Under such circumstances, the society cannot but concentrate mainly on the establishment of its economic foundation, so that the majority of people may lift themselves from poverty. Only when industrialization has been realized and a nation has acquired solid economic strength will it be able to put forward the task of eliminating poverty among all residents, realizing gull employment, universalizing education and establishing a social security system covering the whole society. Second, the post-industrialized society has, at the turn of the century, entered a new epoch, in which the rise of the “knowledge economy” will become its main symbol and human capital will assume a dominant position in economic development. During this new epoch, no sustained economic growth is possible without the development of humankind itself. Therefore, not only industrialized nations, but many newly industrialized economies have put the realization of human development at the top of their work list.
Decades of experience with economic development since the end of World War II have shown that economic growth and human development can follow divergent paths. There is of course a longrun correlation between the two, in that the populations of highly industrialized countries generally enjoy higher human development status than do the populations of low-income developing countries. In the short and medium run, moreover, the post-war world has seen a wide variety of relations between economic growth and human development. This is shown by the fact that international rankings of countries by GDP per capita differ substantially from rankings by Human Development Index (HDI).[②]
As the human development is so important and has such a strong tie with economic growth, enhancing the human development is exactly why China only very recently put accelerating it in an important position even though she has regarded, right from the founding of the People’s Republic, satisfying the material and cultural needs of the people as the aim of the state. After half a century of construction and 20 years of reform and opening to the outside world, China has now reached the stage where accelerating human development has become an important item on her agenda. According to UNDP’s statistics, China’s 1994 rankings by HDI and GDP per capita are fairly close: its HDI rank of 108 is three places above its rank by GDP per capita. But ten years ago the gap was much greater[③].
Table 1 is the HDI of each provinces of China in 1995, made by UNDP[④]. From the table we can see that among China’s 30 provinces and regions, there is considerable variation in human development level, which tightly connected with local economic development level, and must the explanation of these must involve many factors, including historical, geographic and cultural ones. Shanghai, which is the top-ranking in the list, the HDI value is more than doubles that of the bottom-ranking one, the Tibet. It is also apparent that, while HDI and GDP are clearly correlated, there are some fairly large departures from that correlation, the most conspicuous example being Qinghai, whose HDI rank is eight places lower than its per capita GDP rank.
Obviously, economic condition is in some way directly connected with human development because economy capital is the foundation of whole country and its people, for which provides the material basic to other construction programs, no matter education or health care system. All superstructures need economy as sustainment. Since the economic growth plays a so important role in human development, and also, China has made enormous progress in her economic construction, it is necessary to take a closer look at China’s economic conditions during past few decades and her effort to eliminating the nation’s poverty.

 
II. China’s Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation
1. China’s Economic Growth
The rapid rise of China as a major economic power within a time span of about 30 years is often described by analysts as one of the greatest economic success stories in modern times. Apparently, since the reform and opening up policy in 1978, China’s economic construction has made great accomplishments with the national GDP continuously increased at a higher rate. With the income level changed greatly both in rural and urban areas, people’s living quality have also improved amazingly.
Table 2[⑤] The annual rural poverty reduction, the growth rate of per capita GDP and farmers’ consumption level

Table 2 shows that China’s economy has entered the take-off stage since 1978─the average growth rate of per capita GDP has been up to 8.1%, which is the period lasting for the longest time with the highest growth rate of GDP per capita and the largest population who benefit from it. This corresponds to doubling per capita GDP every 8.6 years, 5.4 times of global GDP per capita growth rate in the same period (1.5%).
 
Table 3[⑥] Percentage of Rural Households Grouped by Per Capita Annual Net Income unit：％

In China, the annual growth rate of rural population’s consumption level (the majority of China’s population) is 5.6%; the annual growth rate of per capita net income of farmers is 7.2%, corresponding to doubling their per capita income every 9.7 years. In 1978 nearly 100% peasant household whose per capita net income was below 500 yuan; in 1985 the percentage was 77.7%; in 1990 it was 35%; and in 2001 only 2.5%. In 1985 the percentage of peasant households whose per capita net income was less than 1000 yuan is 97.69%, while in 2001 the ratio has been down to only 13.22%.
From the other part, sino-foreign trade relations, can also display this economic great change. China’s economic rise has led to a substantial increase in U.S.-China economic relations. Total trade between the two countries has surged from $5 billion in 1980 to $343 billion in 2006. For the United States, China is now its 2nd largest trading partner (2006), its 4th largest export market, and its 2nd largest source of imports. Many U.S. companies have extensive manufacturing operations in China in order to sell their products in the booming Chinese market and to take advantage of low cost labor for manufacturing products for export. These operations have helped U.S. firms remain internationally competitive and have supplied U.S. consumers with a variety of low cost goods. China’s large-scale purchases of U.S. Treasury securities have enabled the federal government to fund its budget deficits and keep U.S. interest rates relatively low.[⑦]
All these figures and tables are showing that China’s economy is significantly grown in past years, and this change leads to remarkable poverty alleviation correspondingly.
 
2. Poverty Alleviation
One of the great success stories of China's reforms--in contrast to that of many other transition economies--has been its remarkable record of reducing the incidence of poverty, especially in the early years of the reform period. This great success was achieved through the economic reform which brought rapid growth [...]

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