Documentary on China's poverty-alleviation work airs in the U.S.

A documentary focused on China's poverty alleviation work in the country's remote and rural areas has aired on PBS SoCal, reports CCTV News.

Called "Voices from the Frontline: China's war on poverty", the documentary introduces the poverty-alleviation work in the country's less-developed areas, including Guizhou, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Gansu, and Hainan. It uses five case studies to illustrate how China's poverty alleviation strategy works in action.

It was the first time that a U.S. mainstream media organization had broadcast a special, in-depth TV program on China's poverty alleviation.

A screenshot of the CCTV documentary on China's poverty-reduction work. [Photo: CCTV]

The documentary was produced by a China-U.S. production team led by the award-winning director Peter Getzels. It was hosted and written by Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a renowned China expert and a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal. It took Getzels and his team two years to shoot the documentary.

"It's really challenging to direct an international team in remote areas of China. However, the cross-cultural cooperation gives us an opportunity to have a deep understanding of Chinese society. We took a cinematic approach and tried our utmost to tell the stories as candidly as possible," said Getzels.

China has announced plans to eliminate poverty in all poor counties and regions by 2020. Over 700 million people in China have been lifted out of poverty over the past four decades, and the poverty rate in rural areas plummeted from 97.5 percent in 1978 to 1.7 percent in 2018.