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Week In China: Guizhou, The Poorest Province
BBC NEWS, CHINA
October 31, 2012: As China prepares for a new generation of leaders to take power, the BBC is spending a week on the road looking at both the challenges ahead for the world's most populous nation and the advances it has made.
On day four, Damian Grammaticas visits Guizhou, the poorest province where many rural residents have missed out on China's new wealth.
Day Four: China's poorest province
Lu Jikuan's bare feet squelch through the mud. High on a hillside the 70-year-old is bent double, cutting grass along the edge of his rice paddy with a scythe. Mist hangs in the air and a chill wind blows up the valley. "I've seen rich people, on TV, living in nice houses, driving fancy cars," he says, a grin exposing his missing teeth. "I dream about having that kind of life. But I know it's just a dream."
Instead he makes do with a government pension of 55 yuan ($8, £5) a month and what little more he can earn from selling the occasional calf or pig.
The networks of paddies stretch far down the valleys. They are intricate and beautiful, but nobody makes much money here. Guizhou, where Lu Jikuan lives, is China's poorest province, and this is one of Guizhou's poorest regions.
In the past two decades China's economy has grown by 10% a year and more than 400m people have been lifted out of poverty. But China's growth has been deeply uneven. Those in the right places with the right connections have been able to become astonishingly rich.
There are now 1.4 million Chinese US dollar millionaires. The number of billionaires has grown from 15 in 2006 to 251 today. They have captured the greatest spoils of China's growth while many others have been left behind.
About a 150m Chinese still subsist on less than a dollar and a half a day. Most of them, like Lu Jikuan are stuck in China's villages, far from the opportunities in its giant cities and coastal provinces.
While China's economy has soared, so have its inequalities. The Communist Party had its roots among the rural poor. Its revolution was meant to benefit them.
So today's yawning gap between urban rich and rural poor is an embarrassment for China's rulers. They even identify it as a threat to the legitimacy of their one-party rule, worried that an unfair society will be an unstable one, and say they will tackle it urgently.
Lu Jikuan has heard that sort of talk before. "I hope the new generation of Communist leaders can make us all richer," he says. "I think they've been trying to reduce poverty, but I can't say we've really benefited yet."
Then he has to go. He has rice wine to make. It costs him nothing, and drinking a little every day is one of his life's pleasures.
