海角大神

Before the pigs arrived, Yu Anhen and her husband eked out a living as subsistence farmers in the remote mountains of Guizhou, one of China鈥檚 poorest provinces. Then, two months ago, a government official came to them with an offer of 5,000 yuan ($735) to buy three piglets. Ms. Yu eagerly said yes. She saw it as an opportunity to ease her family鈥檚 finances and help pay for her son鈥檚 college tuition.

鈥淢y husband and I are getting old and it鈥檚 getting harder for us to work outside,鈥� Yu says. 鈥淩aising pigs will help us.鈥澨�

The largest pig should be ready for market in four to five months, where Yu hopes it will sell for about 3,000 yuan ($440). If the other two go for a similar price, she and her husband will be out of poverty, as China defines it, for the first time in their lives 鈥撎齛nd Beijing will be a fraction closer to its goal of eliminating poverty entirely by 2020.听

China has been at the forefront of the world鈥檚 poverty-reduction efforts for nearly four decades. More than 700 million people in the countryside have risen out of poverty, largely thanks to China鈥檚 economic boom. But there's an asterisk next to those accomplishments. Beijing considers people poor if they earn less than 2,300 yuan ($335) per year. By World Bank global standards, less than $700 qualifies as extreme poverty.

Today, in a country of 1.3 billion, 43.35 million people meet Beijing's definition of poverty.听That number is down to 250 in Tuanjie, a shabby village of 3,000 people that is surrounded by terraced corn fields and green mountains in southwestern China. If all goes as planned, says Xiong Jun, the village head, 鈥淲e will leave poverty in 2019.鈥�

Mr. Xiong鈥檚 confidence is buoyed by the sheer scale of China鈥檚 poverty alleviation campaign, whose strategies include relocations, cash handouts, and job training. While much attention has focused on President Xi Jinping鈥檚 ambitious foreign-policy initiatives 鈥� from his military build-up in the South China Sea to the $900 billion 鈥淥ne Belt, One Road鈥� infrastructure and trade program 鈥� poverty alleviation has emerged as one of his top domestic priorities.

The Chinese government has allocated more than听140 billion yuan听($20.5 billion) for poverty alleviation programs this year alone. For Mr. Xi, pulling everyone out of poverty is 鈥渢he baseline task for building a moderately prosperous society.鈥� But as the campaign enters its final stretch and as China鈥檚 economy slows, the work is likely to only get harder.听

The campaign ramped up two years ago after Xi paid a visit to Guizhou on June 18, 2015. A week earlier, four young siblings in a village not far from Tuanjie had committed suicide by drinking pesticide, after their parents abandoned them in search of work. Their deaths sparked a national debate about rural poverty, with some blaming local officials for a lack of services, and renewed the government鈥檚 push to end it.

鈥淧overty is nothing to fear,鈥� he said in the impoverished village of Huamao.听鈥淚f we have determination and confidence, we can overcome any difficulty.鈥澨�

The landlocked province of Guizhou has since emerged as ground zero. In April, Chen Miner, the provincial party chief and one of Xi鈥檚 close allies, reaffirmed his commitment to helping more than 3.7 million people in the province听escape poverty听over the next three years. More than 750,000 will be relocated from mountainous villages to more prosperous towns and cities this year. In a move underscoring Xi鈥檚 support for the campaign, party members in Guizhou unanimously elected him to represent the province at the important 19th National Communist Party Congress that will take place this fall.

Considerable hurdles remain. Analysts say the next 2-1/2 years will be the hardest because many of the remaining poor in China have physical or mental disabilities that make it difficult to hold down a steady job. The Civil Affairs Ministry announced in January that about 40 percent of China鈥檚 poor are poor because of their health.听

Meanwhile, corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies have hampered poverty alleviation programs across the country.听In March, the party secretary from the county that includes Tuanjie听was expelled听from the party and faces criminal charges for having allegedly embezzled more than 174,000 yuan ($25,000).听In 2016, authorities launched a five-year campaign against corruption in the anti-poverty programs,听but problems persist.

Then there鈥檚 the physical challenge. The government plans to relocate 3.4 million people from poor areas by 2020, but providing support to people who remain in China鈥檚 most remote communities is no easy task.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e getting to a point now where it鈥檚 more difficult to access these populations,鈥� says Ben Westmore, a senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) who has studied China鈥檚 poverty alleviation efforts. 鈥淭here aren鈥檛 deep pockets of poverty anymore. It鈥檚 more widely spread, which can be more of a challenge to target.鈥�

Perhaps nowhere is听that truer than in the steep mountains and isolated hamlets of Guizhou. But the province鈥檚 budding technology industry may help not just with jobs, but government oversight.听Officials in a district of Bijie, the prefecture-level city that includes Tuanjie, have developed a smartphone app for tracking every person and household below the poverty line. Field workers can use the app to look up information about poor families across the district and to provide updates. Zhu Yongzhen, deputy director of agriculture for the district, says the app will soon include a 鈥減ublic supervision鈥� feature to improve transparency.

For now, Mr. Zhu uses the app whenever he visits one of the 12 households he supervises. He鈥檒l upload photographs and write brief messages to explain how much progress they鈥檝e made. Sometimes he鈥檒l write simple observations, like he did on a recent visit to an elderly couple鈥檚 home.听

鈥淭he government takes care of them,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 need to worry about their food and clothes. Hope they keep healthy.鈥�

Xie Yujuan contributed reporting.