Corpus-Based Diachronic Analysis on the Representations of China’s Poverty Alleviation in People’s Daily

4.1 The Frequency of Poverty Alleviation Reports over Time

Figure 1 shows the historical changes in the coverage of poverty alleviation in People’s Daily. It is easy to see that the topic of poverty alleviation, as a major social issue, has been covered by People’s Daily for a long period of time. In general, the number of poverty alleviation reports since the 40 years of reform and opening up has been on a gradual upward trend, with small fluctuations and five peaks, which is consistent with the increase in the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty and the promulgation of poverty alleviation policies and other government work. During the 1978–1985 period, China had implemented the strategy of poverty reduction centered around the reform of rural economic and social system. The number of reports during the transition period rose rapidly until it reached a peak in 1986. In 1986, the establishment of Leading Group for Economic Development of Poverty-stricken Areas, marked the standardization of poverty alleviation work in China, the beginning of anti-poverty strategies to pursue the overall strength of poor areas, and the targeting of poverty alleviation work with clear regional characteristics (Cui et al. 2020). The State Council issued the No. 1 document of the Central Government, “Ten Policies on Further Revitalising the Rural Economy”, initially establishing a developmental approach to poverty alleviation. These are why the People’s Daily reached a peak in the number of poverty alleviation reports in 1986. In 1994, the central government issued and implemented “the Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994–2000)”, striving to solve the problem of food and clothing within seven years. So the number of reports rose year by year, reaching a second peak in 1997, during which time the Chinese Association for Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly issued “the Opinions on Relying on Scientific and Technological Progress to Accelerate the Process of Poverty Alleviation”, proposing that science and education are the two main engines and inexhaustible driving forces for poverty alleviation in poor areas (Zhang 2020). By the end of 2000, the number of poor people who had not yet been fed had rapidly shrunk from 80 million in 1992 to less than 30 million, so there was a small peak in coverage in 2000. The fourth peak came in 2013, when General Secretary Xi Jinping first proposed “targeted poverty alleviation”. Since then, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to poverty alleviation work and has made a series of important speeches on targeted poverty alleviation work. The fifth and sixth peaks were reached in 2017 and 2020. In October 2017, in the report of the 19th Party Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly put forward the strategic task of “resolutely winning the battle against poverty”. In 2020, China completed the targeted task of poverty eradication in the new era as scheduled, and nearly 100 million poor people finished poverty eradication, achieving a major victory that impressed the world.

Figure 1:

Annual reports on poverty alleviation in People’s Daily.

The emergence of the peaks is not only influenced by the policy of poverty alleviation, but also by the official “reporting requirements”. In April 1997, the People’s Daily published an “Initiative Letter on Press Activities for Poverty Alleviation”, calling on the press to “open columns, special pages and special programmes for poverty alleviation” to publicize the great significance of poverty alleviation and development and advanced models and experiences, and at the same time the media are also encouraged to go to the “toughest places” for interviews and research to help the poor. In 2011, the Outline of China’s Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development (2011–2020) pointed out in Article 45 that “poverty alleviation publicity should continue to be stepped up” and further proposed to “demonstrate to the international community our government’s efforts and effectiveness in safeguarding people’s right to survival and development (The CPC Central Committee and The State Council 2011)”. In 2014, when the “targeted poverty alleviation” strategy was being implemented, the document “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Propaganda Work on Poverty Alleviation” once again proposes to increase propaganda efforts on poverty alleviation. The timing of these events and the timing of the “peak” in coverage generally overlap or have a sustained impact.

It is easy to see that the topic of poverty alleviation, as a major social issue, has been covered by People’s Daily for a long and continuous period of time. As can be seen from the changes in the amount of coverage by the news media, the more background material there is in objective reality, the more the resource base for media coverage will be enriched, and the more information the coverage presents to the audience. At the same time, however, the policy requirements for poverty alleviation coverage also influence the People’s Daily’s coverage of poverty alleviation. By proactively providing the general public with information on the latest changes and removing people’s uncertainty, the media will boost confidence and vitality in poverty alleviation and create an upwardly mobile atmosphere for poverty alleviation. It can be seen that in China’s social environment, poverty alleviation reporting is closely related to policy.

4.2 Lexical Variations in Representations of Poverty Alleviation

Vocabulary is the most basic unit that makes up a text. In this section, the analysis of the frequency of the use of high-frequency words is used to reveal discursive tendencies and to explore how the People’s Daily expresses its views. In addition to high-frequency words, some words may not be among the top high-frequency words, but they are also very representative and can fully reflect the historical characteristics of the stage.

Table 1 lists the Top 15 high frequency words related to poverty alleviation news in the People’s Daily during the transition period in poverty alleviation after China’s reform and opening up, i.e. between 1978 and 1985.

One of the important reasons for the massive reduction in poverty in China from 1978 to 1985 was the spontaneous effect of poverty reduction brought about through the reform of the rural economic system (Cui et al. 2020). As can be seen from Table 1, the words “poor households, poverty alleviation, poverty” show the theme of the news report. The words “production, support, civil administration” reflect the government’s focus on poverty alleviation policies during this period. The words “masses, mountainous area, farmer” reflect that the target of support during this period was mainly the rural and mountainous people.

As a result of the devastation of the Cultural Revolution, and the serious policy mistakes in the guidelines for rural work, China’s rural economy is extremely weak and the national economy is on the verge of collapse, with widespread poverty throughout the country, especially in mountainous areas. So the Central Committee of the Party focused its poverty alleviation efforts on the rural areas. The historical period from 1978 to 1985 was a period to alleviate poverty and solve the problem of food and clothing, and a period when China’s poverty alleviation policies began to change from “blood transfusion” relief to the mode of mainly supporting and developing poor areas, which is the characteristic of transitional period.

The six terms in Table 2, which are not at the top of the list in terms of frequency of use, occur only in this period and are representative of the lexical features and policies at this stage. The term “rural commune” reflects the rural structure of China in the early years of reform and opening up, characterized by its large scale and the high degree of communalization of the means of production. The terms “round contract, household, contract, and responsibility system” reflect the implementation of the Household Contract Responsibility System, which was promoted throughout the country between 1978 and 1985, with the implementation of market-oriented reforms in rural areas and the development of production and business operations.

In 1978 to 1985, China implemented a poverty reduction strategy centred on the reform of the rural economic and social system. The government promoted the Household Contract Responsibility System, aimed to revitalize the agricultural economy and raise farmers’ incomes through rural institutional reform.

Table 3 lists the Top 15 high frequency words related to poverty alleviation news in the People’s Daily during the developmental period of poverty alleviation in China, i.e. 1986–1993.

The high frequency words “region, economy, exploit, development, and production” indicate the characteristic of this period, that is, the regional economic development. The words “poverty county, emphasis” reflect the clear objects of the poverty reduction. In particular, the word phrase “poverty county” firstly appears in this period, which indicates that poverty alleviation and development have a clear target. During this period, technology began to emerge to alleviate poverty. The words “capital, technology, science and technology” indicate the focus of poverty alleviation measures.

From 1986 to 1993, the Party Central Committee and the State Council implemented a regional development strategy to alleviate poverty. During this period, the characteristics of poverty in the country were characterised by an imbalance in regional development, with differences between urban and rural areas and between the east and west beginning to emerge, while the poverty-stricken population was also characterized by a concentrated regional distribution, mainly in the “old, small, marginal and poor” areas. The main objective of the poverty alleviation and development period is to reduce poverty through large-scale regional poverty alleviation and development. In 1989, the State Council proposed to promote the application of scientific and technological achievements, further develop the rural science and technology team, and provide financial support and other supporting services.

In Table 4, from the words “support poor areas using technology, and industry”, it can be seen that from 1986 to 1993, science and technology poverty alleviation was an important policy in China’s large-scale regional poverty alleviation and development focused on poverty reduction. In 1986, the former State Science and Technology Commission submitted the Report on the Construction Development of Poverty-stricken Areas, clearly proposing the idea of “relying on science and technology to lift poor areas out of poverty and make them rich”. Since then, China’s science and technology poverty alleviation activities have continued to emerge, which also marked the basic establishment of an operating mechanism that is in line with China’s rural economic and social development, and the emergence of a market-oriented rural science and technology supply and demand mechanism.

The words “enterprise, loan and investment” reflect the government’s efforts to set up poverty alleviation enterprises, encourage the development of enterprises, increase investment and issue poverty alleviation loans and other poverty alleviation measures to promote economic development. Since 1986, the Party and the government have provided about one billion dollars of special subsidised loans for poverty alleviation in poor areas every year and have created more employment opportunities for the poor, thus ensuring the most basic needs of the poor.

Table 5 lists the Top 15 high-frequency words related to poverty alleviation news in People’s Daily during the critical period, i.e. from 1994 to 2012.

The main goal of poverty alleviation during this period was to stabilize the food and clothing supply through poverty alleviation and to solve the problem of the poor returning to poverty. The high-frequency words “rural areas, farmers, development, exploit” indicate that the development of rural areas is still the theme of poverty alleviation. The words “region, capital, development” indicate that this stage continued to adhere to the regional economic development that was in place during the development period.

In 1994, the State Council promulgated the Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994–2000), which set out the overall quantitative goal of poverty reduction, namely “to strive to basically solve the problem of food and clothing for about 80 million poor people in the country in about seven years’ time”. During this period, poverty alleviation policies focus on the middle and western regions. On 6 July 1996, the State Council proposed the Report on Organizing Poverty Alleviation Collaboration between More Economically Developed Regions and Less Economically Developed Regions, making a decision that developed provinces help less developed provinces.

The new high-frequency word that occurs in this period, “overcoming difficulty”, indicates China’s strong determination to fight against poverty and its ambition to overcome the difficulties. It also reflects China’s poverty alleviation begins to move gradually from the phase of large scale towards the precision phase. Another new high-frequency word, “China”, shows that as China’s fight against poverty develops, the People’s Daily gradually began to focus on international perspectives on poverty alleviation and on the dissemination of international voices. At this stage, China is committed to promoting South–South cooperation, most notably the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The establishment of the FOCAC has brought unprecedented opportunities for poverty reduction and development in Africa.

In this period (Table 6), the words “technology, science and technology”, “education and culture” reflect the Party and government’s policy of science and technology to alleviate poverty, recognizing the importance of education to poverty alleviation. In 1995, the Party Central Committee and the State Council for the first time systematically explained the meaning and significance of the strategy of “science and education for the development of the country”, vigorously promoting advanced and applicable technologies, consolidating the pool of scientific and technological talents, and focusing on the role of developed regions in helping them with technology, information, talents and capital. The three words “service, strategy and science” indicate that China’s poverty alleviation policy has become more complete and the system has become more scientific, and has been elevated to a national strategic level. China implemented a “Three-pronged” poverty alleviation strategy, namely poverty alleviation by special programs, poverty alleviation by industry and social assistance in poverty alleviation, and strengthened and improved the social service system. During this period, the central government strengthened poverty alleviation in various aspects, including organizational leadership, poverty reduction models, standards and methods.

Table 7 lists the Top 15 high-frequency words related to poverty alleviation news in People’s Daily during the targeted period, i.e. from 2013 to 2020.

The high frequency words “exploit, development and poor households” indicate that the basic approach of development period is still being adhered to at this stage. The difference is that new high-frequency words such as “the battle against poverty” and “targeted” appear, indicating a significant change in the basic strategy for poverty alleviation, and the new word “Xi Jinping” indicates the important role of General Secretary Xi in the battle against poverty. Since the 18th National Congress, the CPC Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has raised poverty management to an unprecedented strategic level and has comprehensively strengthened its initiatives to combat poverty. In addition, the country’s poverty alleviation efforts have focused on precision. Compared to the previous widespread poverty alleviation approach, “targeted poverty alleviation” no longer just focus on counties and villages as in the past, but focuses more on poor households as the main body of poverty alleviation and more on the targeted way of poverty alleviation. So in this period, the media returned to the subject of poverty alleviation and reported more on “poor households”.

General Secretary Xi Jinping first proposed “Targeted Poverty Alleviation” in 2013, and his ideology has guided the entire process of poverty eradication. The words in Table 8 such as “education, service, ecology, characteristics, resources” reflect China’s innovative approach to poverty alleviation and development during the stage of precise poverty alleviation, with emphasis on measures such as education, service industry-led, ecological development, and acting according to local conditions, etc. to alleviate poverty. Poverty alleviation measures cover the entire poverty-stricken region, and promote precise poverty alleviation in many areas such as education, service, ecology and resources, in which significant victories have been achieved. The last term in Table 8, “embroidery”, is notable although it is infrequent occurrence. The word has a metaphorical meaning which means being meticulous like doing embroidery in the work of poverty alleviation. It is often found in the titles of news reports, such as “Targeted poverty alleviation requires full embroidery”, which compares “poverty alleviation” to “embroidery”, highlighting the “precision” of poverty alleviation.

4.3 Concordance Variations in Representations of Poverty Alleviation Related to International Affairs

The above analysis shows that since the reform and opening up of China, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have attached great importance to poverty alleviation and poverty reduction, and have explored a path of poverty alleviation and development that is in line with China’s national conditions. When studying the corpus, it has been found that People’s Daily not only focuses on the progress of poverty alleviation and poverty reduction in China, but also on the links and cooperation between China and other countries or relevant international organizations in poverty reduction, and these reports also reflect the effectiveness of China’s poverty alleviation and economic development, as well as its role and contribution on the world stage. In the following, the author uses AntConc to analyse the frequency and concordance using the words “China, World, UN, and international organizations” as keywords.

As Table 9 shows, the concordances obtained by entering the key word “China” during the period of change in China’s poverty alleviation work are all related to domestic affairs, while the words “world, the United Nations and international organization” do not appear in the news reports of the period. However, between 1978 and 1985, China was already receiving help from international organizations, such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which launched its first country programme of assistance to China (1980–1984), helping the Chinese government to use modern methods to conduct the first national census, address the problem of high maternal and infant mortality, etc. This shows that during this period the People’s Daily’s coverage of poverty alleviation only focused on domestic poverty alleviation and development, such as “state loans and state relief”, and did not turn its attention to foreign areas.

As shown in Table 10, the People’s Daily began to pay some attention to China’s cooperation and exchange with international poverty alleviation organizations and other countries during the period of poverty alleviation and development, but the frequency of words shows that the attention is still not high. In the Concordance of the keyword “world”, the “World Bank” appears most frequently, mostly reporting on the World Bank’s assistance and support to China, such as “providing loans to China and support the southwest of China’s poverty alleviation”. The World Bank’s involvement in China began in the 1980s. The poverty alleviation models mainly include: comprehensive poverty alleviation and development projects, technical assistance and development projects, and joint poverty reduction exchange and cooperation platforms. The term “World Organization” also appears a lot, which are about China receiving help from international organizations or calling for close cooperation between countries around the world.

During this period, international organizations were at the beginning of their assistance and cooperation with China. In 1986, the Chinese government launched an organized, planned and large-scale poverty alleviation and development programme in the rural areas. During this period, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) implemented the second country programme (1986–1990) and the third country programme (1991–1995) in China, carrying out health and environmental protection, agricultural production, education reform, development of ethnic minority areas and other poverty reduction projects. In 1990, the World Bank and the Office of the State Council Leading Group on Poverty Alleviation and Development jointly conducted a study on poverty in China and convened an international seminar on poverty in China.

Between 1994 and 2012, China’s poverty alleviation projects still received rescue and support from international organizations, but the results of the keyword concordance (Table 11) show that the focus of People’s Daily’s coverage during that period gradually shifted from being the recipient of help to being the helper, and China gradually became a major contributor to international poverty alleviation development, with an increasingly positive reputation internationally. The term “UN Millennium Development Goals” appears several times in the index line of the “UN”, and the context is mostly to praise China for being the only country to have achieved the goal of “halving poverty” ahead of schedule. In the concordance for “World” and “China”, there are also many reports of China participating in or holding global conferences, calling on countries around the world to contribute to poverty eradication, and the Chinese government and charitable organizations assisting other countries, such as “Over the years, China has made remarkable achievements in cooperation with international development institutions such as the World Bank (2004.5.25)”

During this period, Chinese leadership sought extensive international assistance for China’s poverty alleviation and development, and actively expanded exchanges and cooperation with the international community in the field of poverty alleviation and development. In 1994, the State Council issued the the Seven-Year Program for Lifting 80 Million People Out of Poverty (1994–2000), which clearly stated that exchanges with international, regional, governmental and non-governmental organizations related to poverty alleviation should be actively carried out to enable the international community and overseas Chinese to understand the economic development and poverty alleviation work in poor areas of China. In 2001, the State Council issued the Outline on China’s Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development (2001–2010), which once again emphasized the need to continue to seek assistance from international organizations and developed countries for poverty alleviation projects.

As can be seen in Table 12, at this stage, the coverage of poverty reduction in the People’s Daily reached its peak in terms of world cooperation. In the concordance line of “China”, there are many reports on “China–Africa, China–Latin America, and China–ASEAN”, mainly about learning from China’s experience in poverty alleviation and seeking help, such as “China explains grape-growing techniques to local people in Africa; China–ASEAN Sustainable Development Cooperation”, etc. In the concordance for “UN and International Organizations”, the coverage focuses on China’s cooperation with international organizations and assistance to countries around the world, as well as international praise for China’s achievements in poverty alleviation, highlighting China’s contribution to world poverty reduction efforts, such as “China has provided nearly RMB 400 billion in assistance to 166 countries and international organizations.” “It has provided China’s experience for the realization of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals”, etc.

Since 2007, the Chinese government and the UN system in China have jointly organized “the High Level Forum on Poverty Reduction and Development” on the “International Day for the Eradication of Poverty” on 17 October each year to discuss the issues of international poverty reduction. In 2014, China promulgated the Measures for the Administration of Foreign Aid in the form of a policy document. In 2015, Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the High-level Forum on Poverty Reduction and Development entitled “Working Together to Eradicate Poverty and Promote Common Development”, once again demonstrating to the people of the world China’s achievements. In 2016, the China International Poverty Alleviation Centre was established. In 2018, the China National Agency for International Development Cooperation was established. Judging from the continuous emergence of foreign policy documents and the establishment of specialized agencies, China’s participation in international cooperation on poverty reduction has become more orderly, organized and systematic, and China’s participation in global poverty governance has entered a comprehensive and deepening stage.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the People’s Daily’s coverage of China’s relationship between poverty alleviation and the world follows China’s own progress in poverty alleviation and the changing development of the international community’s poverty reduction efforts. Although there are few reports on specific policies, they do reflect China’s changing status from being helped to helper in the world’s poverty reduction efforts, and highlight the great victory China has achieved in its fight against poverty.