How China turns regional disparities into driver of common development

Editor's note: Zheng Haizhen, a special commentator for CGTN, is an assistant researcher at the Department for Global Governance and International Organization Studies, in the China Institute of International Studies. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On July 20, 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired a symposium on East-West cooperation for poverty alleviation in Yinchuan, China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where he called for a clear understanding of the situation, a focus on targeted measures, deeper assistance and concrete results. A decade on, this policy arrangement has evolved from a key measure in the fight against poverty into an important mechanism for promoting coordinated regional development and advancing all-round rural revitalization.

Targeted collaboration narrows development gaps

Development disparities between China's eastern and western regions provide a starting point for mutually complementary cooperation. The eastern region provides funding, technology, market access, management expertise and talent, while the western region leverages its strengths in land, labor, ecological resources and distinctive local resources. Through paired assistance, the two sides have established stable cooperative relationships.

This mechanism first played an important role in securing victory in the fight against poverty. By the end of 2020, all 98.99 million rural residents living below China's current poverty line had been lifted out of poverty, all 832 poor counties had been removed from the poverty list, and all 128,000 poor villages had been taken off the poverty register. Overall regional poverty was eliminated. Practice has shown that long-term, targeted and well-organized support focused on development weaknesses can significantly improve conditions in less-developed regions.

Income growth further reflects the improvement in development capacity. In 2025, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in counties lifted out of poverty reached 18,627 yuan, an increase of 6.3% over the previous year, or 6.5% in real terms after adjusting for price changes. The fact that incomes in areas lifted out of poverty continued to grow faster than the national rural average shows that the gains from poverty alleviation have been consolidated and that regional development gaps are gradually narrowing.

Multi-stakeholder coordination demonstrates China's institutional strengths

A defining feature of East-West collaboration is the coordinated participation of the government, the market and social forces in pursuit of common objectives. The government establishes paired assistance relationships, formulates collaboration plans, provides public funding and conducts performance assessments. Enterprises invest and develop businesses in line with market demand, improve industrial chains and create employment. Social organizations, universities, hospitals and professional institutions provide support for education, healthcare, science and technology, and public welfare services. Together, these actors have enabled assistance to shift from addressing short-term difficulties to building long-term development capacity.

This coordination mechanism demonstrates China's institutional strength in pooling resources to accomplish major undertakings. At its core is the use of clearly defined public objectives to guide resource allocation and the establishment of long-term cooperative relationships featuring clearly assigned responsibilities, complementary strengths and interconnected interests.

East-West collaboration is therefore not merely a regional policy, but also a systematic model of governance. It combines the government's organizational capacity, the market's capacity for innovation and society's capacity for participation, creating a complete chain encompassing policy planning, resource allocation, project implementation and performance evaluation.

A Chinese approach to global poverty reduction

Global poverty reduction continues to face severe challenges. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025 estimates that approximately 808 million people lived in extreme poverty in 2025, accounting for 9.9% of the world's population or roughly one in every 10 people.

Against this backdrop, the international significance of East-West collaboration lies not in providing a fixed template that can simply be copied, but in demonstrating an approach that can be adapted to different national conditions. This approach goes beyond reducing poverty alleviation to cash assistance or a single market instrument. Development cooperation can genuinely narrow development gaps only when it respects each country's national conditions and responds to local needs.

This experience is being translated into international cooperation through the Global Development Initiative (GDI). More than 130 countries and international organizations have supported and participated in the initiative, while over 80 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI. The initiative has mobilized more than $23 billion in development funding and carried out over 1,800 cooperation projects covering poverty reduction, food security, industrialization, the digital economy, green development and other fields.

These projects focus on helping developing countries strengthen their capacity for independent and sustainable development. From collaboration between China's eastern and western regions to development cooperation among countries of the Global South, the underlying logic remains the same. Development should not be a privilege enjoyed by only a few regions or countries, and poverty reduction cannot rely solely on short-term relief.

East-West collaboration has turned regional disparities into space for cooperation, transformed institutional strengths into development effectiveness, and made China's poverty reduction experience a public good for the world.

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