When China completed its historic eradication of absolute poverty in late 2020, there was a great sense of pride in the country. However, that was only part of the picture. Not everyone noticed another key message from China’s leadership at the time: shaking off poverty is not the finish line but the starting point of a new endeavor.

In 2014, China published a list of over 800 counties deemed as impoverished, and all of them had been removed from the list by 2020. From 2020 to 2025, those places’ rural households, where poverty once concentrated in, saw their disposable income grow nearly 48%, outpacing the 42.7% increase of nationwide rural households in the same period. This steady growth tells us that China isn’t complacent and remains deeply committed to further improving the livelihoods of people that have been lifted out poverty.

More than five years on, China’s policy has shifted from radical poverty alleviation to long-term poverty prevention. In particular, China’s agricultural modernization and rural revitalization strategies are playing a crucial role in cementing its poverty alleviation gains. In China’s context, the sustainability of poverty alleviation will face questions if there is no effort to boost its agricultural and rural economy.

In agricultural sector, the comprehensive mechanization rate is a key indicator of production efficiency. As of 2025, this rate had reached more than 76% in China, up from slightly over 60% in 2014.In some advanced economies such as the United States, agricultural........

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