Chinese model targets local issues, improves livelihoods in remote Laos settlement

LUANG PRABANG, Laos, June 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from Chinadaily.com.cn

To mark the fifth anniversary of China eradicating absolute poverty, China Daily is publishing a series of stories on how the country's poverty alleviation experience has not only helped the country wipeout severe deprivation, but has also taken root and made an impact around the world.

On a laptop screen inside a meeting room in a rural area of Hunan province, the face of Padith flickers to life.

The 54-year-old village chief of Thinsom - a small hamlet nestled in the mountains of Laos' Luang Prabang province - waves from his computer in a local government building, a translator seated beside him. Grinning, he asks in Lao, "Secretary Lu, can you hear me? Very happy to see you!"

On the other end, Lu Chuntao, first Communist Party of China secretary of Shibadong in Huayuan county - China's model antipoverty village - leans toward the camera.

"Hi, village chief. Spring has come to Shibadong. How is Thinsom?" he replies. Then the two begin exchanging the latest developments in their respective villages.

The exchange, recorded in early April, was part of a regular video call between two villages that became "international sister villages" in 2023.

But what makes this unusual is not the call itself - rather, what it represents: China is now exporting the playbook that has lifted Shibadong, and countless villages like it across the country, out of poverty since 2013.

When the sister village pact was signed in late 2023, Thinsom was a remote settlement of wooden houses reached by dirt roads. There was not a single kindergarten. Farmers coaxed just one rice harvest a year from parched fields.

Today, an 8.6-kilometer-long irrigation canal has been cleared. A bright new preschool stands next to a reading room. And villagers talk of a second annual rice crop.

"The new classroom gives children a safe place to learn - and parents now care more about education. The repaired canal has made farming more productive," Padith told his counterpart during the call. He added that the village plans to explore rural tourism and specialty products, following Shibadong's example.

China's export model

Officially introduced in 2013 at Shibadong, "targeted poverty alleviation" rejects one-size-fits-all aid. Instead, it assesses local problems - commonly scarce land, missing industries, or failing infrastructure - before designing customized solutions, ranging from building new schools to fostering new businesses. The approach lifted 98.99 million rural Chinese out of abject poverty between 2013 and 2020, according to official data. That meant an average of more than 12 million people a year - roughly the population of a medium-sized country.

Lu, assigned earlier this year to oversee Shibadong's industrial development, has become the idea's latest ambassador. In late March, shortly after taking up his post, he traveled to Laos for a weeklong exchange. He visited three Lao cities, including the capital Vientiane, for face-to-face meetings with officials and community leaders - recounting Shibadong's path out of poverty and encouraging them to follow suit.

"We also want to bring them here - to walk through Shibadong and see it with their own eyes," Lu said. "More exchanges, more mutual visits. That's how we share our experience and help them advance their own fight against poverty."

By sharing Shibadong's hard-won lessons in poverty eradication, Lu is following the path blazed by Shi Jintong, the village's Party secretary. Born in Shibadong in 1979, Shi inherited a village with no roads, no industry, and no visible future.

For Shi, the core of Shibadong's success lies in replicable principles. "First, you must accurately measure the extent of poverty and understand its causes," he said.

Every country defines poverty according to its own development context, Shi noted. China's 2013 standard - 2,300 yuan ($340) per year at 2010 rates, adjusted for inflation since - may differ from other nations' benchmarks, but the diagnostic method behind it is transferable.

A second factor, he said, is stimulating "internal motivation" - the poor's own willingness to change. "People need both policies and a sense of support," Shi explained, calling this a model worth borrowing.

Third, solutions must fit local realities."Shibadong's method seeks truth from facts, adapts to conditions, and offers targeted guidance," he said. Unlike the indiscriminate "flooding" of past relief efforts, the new approach is precise - identifying what a community lacks and helping it get exactly that.

Shi traveled to Thinsom twice. "The first time was to learn - to see their geography, living conditions, industries, and incomes," he said. "Later, we sat down with Lao officials and villagers to discuss development - and that's how our partnership began." He noted that Thinsom's infrastructure, education, industries, and living environment closely resembled those of China's villages before poverty alleviation.

From diagnosis to delivery

Turning principles into practice fell to China International Water & Electric Corp, a subsidiary of the State-owned China Communications Construction Group.

Wang Jiang, CWE's Laos branch general manager, said his team spent weeks in early 2025 doing door-to-door surveys.

"The essence of targeted poverty alleviation is precision - we want to avoid the 'flood irrigation' approach," Wang said via a video call from Vientiane. "We believe that actually going out and surveying what the people wish for today are the prerequisite for making our follow-up work precise and effective."

"Villagers said the canal had silted up, and parents worried who would watch their toddlers while they worked elsewhere," he added. "So we tackled those two things first."

By June 2025 - ahead of the rainy season planting - the 8.6-kilometer canal was dredged and reinforced. Water from the famous Kuang Si waterfall now flows steadily to the paddies. "After we opened up the irrigation system, farming could go from one season to two," Wang said.

In September 2025, a new kindergarten opened, built by CWE with input from Shibadong's team. About 40 children - many left behind by migrant parents - now learn basic Lao and occasionally a Chinese nursery rhyme.

Next to the kindergarten, a small library stocked with picture books was added under an educational program named after the Lancang-Mekong River. Known as the Lancang River in China and the Mekong in Laos, the shared name symbolizes the friendship between the two countries.

"On the opening day, our volunteers sang with the kids. (When you hear) the laughter - that's when you know it's real," Wang said.

Lesson worth learning

Since 1978, China has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty, according to the World Bank's international standard, accounting for over 70 percent of global poverty reduction in that period and making it the largest anti-poverty campaign in history.

China reached the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty a full decade ahead of the 2030 target. A World Bank report noted that, largely due to China's contribution, the global poverty rate fell from 38 percent in 1990 to 8.5 percent in 2024.

After eradicating extreme poverty at home, China has applied its proven methods to help other countries like Laos fight poverty.

By last year, China had run 15,000 training programs for more than 180 countries and international organizations, the China International Development Cooperation Agency said. The courses covered 17 fields and over 100 specialized areas, with more than 500 sessions focused specifically on governance and poverty reduction. In total, more than half a million people from around the world have been trained.

The Laos village chief Padith has come to understand the philosophy behind these projects.

"China's poverty alleviation model is not just about handing out supplies," he said. "It makes concrete plans based on the village's real situation. This approach builds our own ability to sustain progress - what they call 'hematopoietic ability' - rather than relying on outside help."

He hopes to deepen ties beyond infrastructure. "I hope we can increase mutual visits - for example, exchange and study trips for village cadres," Padith said. "We can also cooperate on agricultural technical training and share experiences in rural tourism development. We welcome Chinese friends to come to Thinsom, to see our progress and changes for themselves, and to explore together a sustainable development path that suits both sides."

Wang's team is now studying small-scale projects for Thinsom, such as homestays for tourists heading to Kuang Si waterfall. "We want Thinsom to develop its own 'hematopoietic ability' - to make its own money," Wang said.

Back in Shibadong, Shi remains confident about the future success of the Chinese model. "I believe that under the correct leadership of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, and with the joint efforts of the Lao people, combining Shibadong's poverty-alleviation experience with Laos' own realities ... I am confident that Thinsom's future will be just like Shibadong's today."