(Minghui.org) Since early March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been publicizing the news that poverty has been “eradicated” in China despite the pandemic. It claims that what was accomplished by the CCP was nothing short of a miracle. What is the truth behind the claim?

In a blog published by the Brookings Institution, Professor Indermit Gill said that to make such a claim, the Chinese government used a poverty line well below what's considered appropriate for China. “[The] Chinese government uses a poverty line of about $2.25 a day, in 2011 prices and adjusting for purchasing power. … For upper-middle-income countries like China, it [the World Bank] reckons that a reasonable poverty line is $5.50 a day,” he said. Thus, many Chinese were raised above poverty by simply setting the poverty line artificially low.

Even so, some families living in rural areas said that village officials coerced them to sign a document stating that they no longer live in poverty. Some families were forced to comply, fearing that they would be stripped of their low-income subsidies if they refused. 

In interviews conducted by overseas media in recent days, some Chinese told reporters that many people have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and are experiencing hardship; some healthcare workers said they have witnessed many people who cannot afford the cost of hospitalization and are living in despair. 

This is yet another travesty extending from the top level of CCP officials to the bottom, like so many lies before. For example, another such campaign that has been going on since the past year is the so-called “Zero-out Campaign” in which CCP officials attempt to force every Falun Gong practitioner on the government's blacklist to renounce Falun Gong. Oftentimes, members of the CCP's Political and Legal Affairs Committee, local police stations, and community offices take pre-printed documents to the homes of Falun Gong practitioners and force them to sign them. 

When they cannot get a practitioner to sign the document, officials force the practitioner's family members to sign, or repeatedly visit the home and refuse to leave. Some have repeatedly called or texted the practitioners’ family members. Some officials forcibly grabbed the practitioners’ hands to get a fingerprint. And some cut off the electricity or water to practitioners’ homes in retaliation for their refusing to comply. 

In some cases, the authorities went to the workplaces of the practitioners' children and pressured them to persuade their parents to sign the documents. Some practitioners' children were threatened with losing their jobs. And some of the practitioners’ children were forced to sign the statements on their parents' behalf.

When officials forced the practitioners to sign the renunciation statements, they didn’t care whether the practitioners meant it, or who actually signed the statements. As long as they could get the signature and finish their tasks, that was good enough – no matter whether it was false or not. 

Whether it is “eradicating poverty” or the “Zero-out Campaign,” the Chinese people are the true victims of the CCP's lies, violence, and evil nature. With the economic downturn and increasing unemployment brought on by the pandemic, the goal of eradicating poverty could not have possibly been achieved by the end of 2020. 

But to glorify itself with their “political achievement” and “miracle,” the CCP chooses to deceive the public yet again.