It is billed as the "final offensive" against extreme poverty in China's poorest province.
Between now and 2020, two million people are to be moved from their isolated mountain homes in Guizhou province as part of one of the single largest relocations in recent Chinese history.
It is a gargantuan task and one that will cost billions. But provincial authorities claim resettlement is the only way to eliminate the grinding rural poverty that continues to blight China's countryside even after one of the greatest economic booms in human history.
"Even if we build roads to reach them, provide drinking water to them and work to alleviate poverty there for another 50 years, the problem might not be addressed," Guizhou's party secretary, Zhao Kezhi, said earlier this year.
"[The mountains] Â… barely provide the conditions for sustaining life." |