Since reform and opening up, China's economic achievements had been plain for all to see.
Today, although China still carried the label of a developing country, its GDP and consumer spending were already on par with those of long-established capitalist nations.
In some respects, those developed countries even lagged behind China. Chinese tourists traveling abroad often felt as if they had gone back in time, with all the inconveniences that came with it.
No other country planted communications towers everywhere the way China did. It had barely finished covering its own territory before its signal reached straight into neighboring countries.
The surrounding small nations had plenty to say about that, but weren't sure whether they should.
After reform and opening up, China had set itself a modest goal: eliminate absolute poverty by 2020.
Everyone could see that in recent years, civil servants had been throwing themselves into the fight against poverty as if their lives depended on it. Poverty alleviation had become a major achievement for them. Local officials in impoverished areas went without saying—they were like members of a suicide squad. Men in their thirties looked prematurely aged, as if they were in their sixties. Sometimes officials from other areas would also swoop in to steal their kills and rack up experience (credentials).
As the saying went, every chick had its own way of peeing; there were always more solutions than problems.
It was like a massive campaign. By now, impoverished areas had become fewer and fewer.
The real causes of poverty were largely geographical: either barren mountains and harsh terrain, or desolate, infertile places where not even birds left droppings—places so poor that even rabbits could starve to death.
Watching others enjoy good food and drink and live better lives, hardly anyone wanted to spend their days living