Despite years of prosperity in eastern China, pockets of poverty still remain in the developed region.
While east China is home to affluent metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai, carving out and lifting up the impoverished areas in the region presents a special challenge for the country's resolution to eliminate poverty by 2020.
Zhang Changyong is living in Yingshang county in the Dabie mountains on the border of Hubei, Henan and Anhui province, one of the poorest regions in the East. Even though his mud-walled house is equipped with electricity and lights, his house remains dark throughout the day. He simply cannot afford power.
Two hours' drive from Hefei, capital of Anhui province, Yingshang seems "prehistoric" to urban dwellers in the east.
Besides his house, Zhang's family's only possessions are a few pieces of worn-out furniture scattered across the mud floor. After Zhang's son died from illness, his daughter-in-law fled, leaving three children behind.
Unable to support her granddaughter's college education on meager earnings from farm work and an annual government allowance of 3,000 yuan (472.5 U.S. dollars), Zhang's wife Shan Congzhen, who's in her seventies, has to scavenge the village. When lucky, Shan can earn 10 yuan in two days.
According to the civil affairs bureau of Shangying county, there are more than 10,000 impoverished households like Zhang's in the county.
Dabieshan is one of the country's 11 "extremely impoverished" regions involving multiple towns and villages. Nearly two million people need financial aid in Anhui alone. Several of the "extremely impoverished" regions are located in east China including Anhui and Jiangxi provinces.
Zhang Xiaoshan, director of the Rural Development Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said battling poverty in the 11 extremely impoverished regions is a major obstacle in poverty relief efforts.
"Most of these belts lie in provincial border areas, which requires more coordinated efforts," said Zhang.
China has pledged more support policies to lift its poor people above the poverty line by 2020. So far, they have helped lift more than 600 million people out of poverty in the past 30 years, accounting for about 70 percent of those brought out of poverty worldwide.
