The author has spent over 3 decades, from 1993 to 2019, in field research where he drove over 200,000 kilometers across China and interviewed hundreds of people from all walks of life, including national leaders to study the evolution of China’s anti-poverty strategies. Stories included in this book show that China’s war on poverty began after liberation in 1949 with a rather simplistic focus on aid and redistribution, but this often led to dependency and “poverty of spirit.” Then over time, the philosophy shifted to empowerment by fostering self-reliance—or as Chinese put it, “blood production rather than blood transfusion.” The primary method of empowerment was to provide modern infrastructure, “Roads first, then riches,” so rural dwellers in remote Inner Mongolia or the Himalayan heights of Tibet had the same access to markets and jobs, or Internet for e-commerce, as their urban counterparts. Then people who seized the opportunities and prospered first used their newfound wealth and experience to help others. weiterlesen