Breaking Out of the Poverty Trap

The following sections are included:

• Members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Research Team

• Contents

• Preface

• Bibliography

One of the key objectives of China's anti-poverty policies is to alleviate severe and chronic poverty, while also eliminating temporary poverty. The poor rural residents of the Tibetan Plateau suffer from severe poverty, which requires the government to take comprehensive, multi-dimensional measures, to help them break through the poverty trap. Apart from implementing a policy aimed at guaranteeing a minimum standard of living, the government should also invest in infrastructure, information provision, skills training, market organization development, technical support, education, improvements in public health and the provision of other social services.

Market-oriented socioeconomic transformation in China is challenging conventional rules and the norms of Tibetan farmers and herders, who are adapting their conventional rational behavior to a market environment. They are making the most of market opportunities, optimizing their use of labor, contracted land and pastures in diverse ways. Despite having a limited ability to take risks, their preference towards risk aversion has not prevented them from using new breeds and applying new technologies suited to the local environment. As a result of the decline in arable land per capita, the fall in the capacity of pasture lands, a rising cost of living and increased competition in migrant work, farmers and herders have reduced the number of children they have. Although religion is still a big part of their lives, they have made rational adjustments to the time they allocate and the amount of money they spend on religious activities.

Though market development in Tibetan areas is restricted by unfavorable natural conditions, there have been many cases of farmers and herdsmen participating in market activities. Moreover, examples of their participation can be found from a long time ago. Meanwhile, marketization in inland areas has accelerated the same process in Tibetan-inhabited areas, allowing Tibetan farmers and herdsmen to trade more extensively. However, due to the small size of the local market, all products sold by farmers and herdsmen are at the bottom of the industrial chain and thus, are susceptible to large price fluctuations. With little bargaining power, individual farmers or herdsmen have unstable income streams. In addition, only a limited number of farmers and herdsmen can get hired in the traditional handicraft industry, and few can find jobs in other areas, such as retail or working in restaurants and hotels.

In the service sector, the only local competitors of the small trade companies founded by migrants are companies run by temples. Their comparative advantage lies in the fact that they are a neatly-organized entity, with educated workers (i.e. lamas) and have regular contact with the local consumers. Presently, to enhance the bargaining power of local farmers and herdsmen, the only way is to improve their alignment and promote better cooperation. Even in developed economies, for individual farmers to achieve economies of scale, the best option is to form a cooperative. For one, it allows them to compete with larger companies. Moreover, traditional community-based culture and mutual assistance in Tibetan areas serve as the foundation for sales and credit cooperatives in the modern market economy.

This chapter probes into the tricholoma matsutake industry by applying value chain analysis. The author argues that the Tibetans found in the areas that produce tricholoma matsutake receive an extremely small portion of the profits from the global market. This is not only disadvantageous to the interests of the Tibetans but also to the protection of tricholoma matsutake resources. Merchants of tricholoma matsutake in China should work together to enhance their role in the global market and bring an end to the current situation in which they are merely passive price-takers, so as to help the Tibetans gain a larger proportion of the overall profits. Meanwhile, local governments should put higher premiums on the regulation and protection of tricholoma matsutake resources. Moreover, various organizations should establish and maintain effective rules on the collection of tricholoma matsutake. Only with multidirectional policies can China's tricholoma matsutake industry follow the path of steady and sustainable development.

This chapter describes the role that cordyceps sinensis resources¹ plays in the socioeconomic development in Tibetan-inhabited areas of Qinghai Province, emphasizing the importance of protecting the eco-environment as the basis for developing the resources. Reform of the pasture contract system must be intensified in order to grant Tibetan herders resource ownership in their contract pastures as an incentive for them to protect cordyceps sinensis and the eco-environment.

Having conducted field research on the ecological resettlement of Tibetan villages in Qinghai, this chapter found that ecological re-settlers face significant risks of impoverishment in host communities, as they can no longer work and live in ways that they are used to, and once they join these host communities their earning capacity is in fact worsened. The risks of impoverishing this group of people can in fact undermine efforts to protect the land. Moreover, such approaches may pose new challenges to poverty alleviation work in Tibetan areas, and thus merit further attention. On the basis of our findings, this author recommends that in addition to financial compensation to populations displaced by the ecological resettlement project, investing in the human resources of these populations (i.e. both adults and children) is extremely important for ecological re-settlers to improve their earning capacity in the host communities and to integrate into their new urban environment.

Antenatal care can help children from poor families get a good start to their lives and thus avoid the transmission of intergenerational poverty. Therefore, this chapter argues that focusing on the provision of antenatal care for children from poor families is the right place to start if your objective is to reduce poverty. The Chinese government has launched a program which aims to reduce maternal mortality and tetanus in newborns. This program plays a similar role to that of antenatal care. However, women living in pastoral areas in Yushu and Guoluo (the two Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures in Qinghai Province) do not sufficiently use antenatal care. Based on information collected through fieldwork, this chapter will try to find out the reasons behind this pattern of behavior, as well as understand the policy implications of this phenomenon.

China has launched an all-out campaign to eradicate “basic and semi-illiteracy”, and achieve “basic universal access to compulsory education” (two basics). In Diqing Prefecture found in the Yunnan Province and Yushu and Guoluo Prefectures in Qinghai, where we undertook our survey, this task has become a major priority for the local government and has been carried out through a short-term campaign. School infrastructure has been improved greatly, but similar progress has not been made with regards to the competence of the teachers. Due to disparate levels of cultural exchange and economic development between the Tibetan regions of Yunnan and Qinghai, there are great differences in the attitude of local residents towards sending their children to school. Hence, the difficulty of promoting compulsory education also varies between the two provinces. In addition, the promotion of compulsory education has, to some extent, crowded out private schools and other forms of assistance. This chapter also describes some success stories and undertakes a brief analysis of the relationship between private and government-funded education. In conclusion, this chapter makes a number of policy recommendations focused on the promotion of compulsory education in Tibetan regions.

Based on field surveys¹ conducted in the rural Tibetan-inhabited regions of Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan Provinces, this chapter has found that radio and television (TV) — compared to other forms of media — currently play an indispensable role in promoting Party and state policies, influencing public opinion among farmers and herdsmen, expanding the channels they can use to access information and knowledge, enhancing their ability to participate in market activities, as well as improving their material living standards and cultural life. This chapter also found that the cultural life of farmers and herdsmen has been enriched and improved remarkably, thanks to the popularization of radio and TV in the remote regions in the west. This is reflected in the comprehensive implementation of state projects such as the “Tibet–Xinjiang Project for Radio and TV Coverage” and the “Extend Radio and TV Coverage to Every Village Project”. Meanwhile, the accompanying new demands and problems require special attention from relevant government departments.

In the Tibetan regions, there are already some systems in place to help the poor and support the elderly in local villages and tribes. And with the rural social security system in the process of being implemented across the country, social aid has begun to take on an even more important role there. In the eastern Tibetan regions, where we conducted this survey, we found some changes to the pension insurance scheme and the social aid system for the aged and the poor. Yet, the new social insurance scheme and social aid mechanism inevitably face some problems. It is these problems that this chapter sets out to elaborate on.

The Tibetan pastoral area in southern Qinghai is often subjected to snow disasters which can severely damage the income of herders' and can bring about other related hazards. The breaking down of the relationship between snow disasters and poverty constitutes an important part of the local poverty-alleviation strategy. Based on fieldwork conducted by the author, this chapter examines the relief efforts of herders and the government during and after a disaster and presents an analysis and assessment of these efforts. Although efforts have improved over time, the local relief mechanism still has some defects and needs further work in order to achieve a modicum of perfection. In order to improve this mechanism, one needs to understand that the material losses as a result of a snow disaster are different for pastoralists as opposed to agriculturalists. In addition to understanding this difference, it is important to comprehend the difference between those who are victims of snow disasters, and those who are more generally poverty-stricken.

Observations conducted on the rangelands on the eastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (found in He'nan County and Zeku County in southeast Qinghai) indicate that the following conditions result in heavy snowfall and snow disasters. The first factor to consider is the height of the foliage. If the foliage is short in length, this increases the possibility of a snow disaster occurring. Excluding natural factors, the undergrowth of foliage occurs because of improper use of the pasture lands set aside for winter grazing. Consequently, when the withered foliage is covered by the snowfall, the livestock are starved to death because of the lack of edible foodstuffs. Second, it is extremely cold after heavy snowfall. Coldness not only freezes weak livestock to death, but also starves healthy livestock, as it prevents the accumulated snow from melting. Third, the government's limited capacity to assist with disaster prevention and relief cannot improve the scarcity of food. Therefore, it can be seen that snow disaster risks are directly associated with the exploitation system of pastures and the public service level of the government.

The risks are both related to natural and human factors, that is, different ownership systems of pastures and the public service level of the government, which vary greatly over different historical periods. A more rational system and a better level of public service is crucial in order to reduce disaster risks.

The following sections are included:

• Acknowledgments

• Index