Yang Jinfeng moved from wielding a hoe to stitching fine threads with careful hands. She admits she doubted herself because she struggled with crafts and had damaged fingers, yet patience carried her. She left poverty behind and, last year, bought a small plot of land and a car as a new chapter began while she completed a Buddhist fresco.
Baisha Embroidery Institute, nestled in a village of Yunnan province, is among countless initiatives that helped China eradicate extreme poverty. The progress in both speed and scale is striking. The World Bank notes that in 1990 roughly 750 million people in China lived in poverty; by 2012 the number fell to around 90 million, and by four years later it dropped to about seven million, a fraction of the population. In the years since, the country has reported even stronger gains.
President Xi Jinping announced that the country had achieved a decisive victory last year. Some observers highlight that roughly three quarters of recent global poverty reductions have occurred in China, which invites a broader discussion about how poverty trends evolved worldwide.
centuries old tradition
From Yunnan province along the border with Thailand, this story remained largely unnoticed until travelers began to discover the region decades ago at the edge of the bustling east coast. Yunnan embodies a legendary landscape with villages built from timber and stone, peaks piercing the skyline, and valleys that seem to cling to the clouds. Its vibrant nature and rich ethnic tapestry make it one of the most compelling corners of the country. Away from the big cities of Dali and Lijiang, a sense of peaceful, rural life still lingers within a few tens of kilometers.
In Baisha town, locals explored ways to leverage nearby tourism and revived a centuries-old embroidery tradition of the Naxi people. During the Qing dynasty, it was customary for loyal townsfolk to present works as gifts for weddings. The art form expanded as the Han people joined, and today the exhibition hall features dreamlike landscapes, pandas, and daily scenes from Naxi life. The value of a piece depends on size and skill; even a grand mural can command substantial sums.
Jin Qiu, a supervisor at the institute, describes a self-sustaining process. Six years ago provincial leaders asked the school to teach village women embroidery. A small team traveled to remote villages to teach the basics; the best students advanced to the institute, refined their craft, and then returned to teach others. A dozen women work at the institute, while another three hundred participate from home, some full-time and others part-time.
The village demonstrates how a centuries-old craft can empower rural communities while preserving cultural heritage. The program helps many artisans earn a living and pass on traditional techniques to new generations.
80,000 million investment
China has made unprecedented investments to accelerate poverty reduction since 2015, allocating vast resources for infrastructure, housing, social transfers, and urban relocation programs. Government teams have surveyed rural areas to map needs and ensure targeted support, coordinating efforts with local households to oversee the recovery process. The rural provinces have shown strong support for these measures, though earlier decades faced skepticism about prioritizing growth over social support.
Yan’s family, with four adults, earned about 20,000 yuan a year from farming and up to 50,000 yuan from tobacco. Yan now earns roughly 36,000 yuan from embroidery alone, nearly four times the income from harvests. For six years he balanced fieldwork with thread work before dedicating himself fully to the craft. He recalls long days and nights of stitching, mistakes that sometimes marred pieces, yet the payoff grew over time as his earnings rose and he helped preserve a cultural tradition. He charges around 50 yuan per piece.
Under $1.69 a day
The poverty line in China is often discussed in relation to international benchmarks. The World Bank’s standard sits higher, yet many rural households still live on modest incomes. Debates continue about whether traditional thresholds should be adjusted to reflect a maturing economy, but eradicating poverty remains a central political objective.
Two years ago, a premier highlighted that hundreds of millions of people live on under a thousand yuan per month, a statement that sparked conversation about living standards and social policy. Cultural works depicting farmer life and rural resilience have graced public spaces and screens, illustrating the challenges and progress in a country undergoing rapid change. Some producers click to a brighter future, while others continue to face hardships in the new urban landscape.
China continues to address rural poverty with a broad set of measures, and observers note significant progress over the past three decades. A traveler could now see vast contrasts across the country, from pockets of persistent hardship to thriving villages that blend tradition with modern opportunity. The journey of rural communities toward better livelihoods has become a compelling example of collective effort and cultural sustainability.