Allan Alach

Why did I write a book about China’s war on poverty? Why spend years documenting how a nation of 1.4 billion lifted 600 million people out of destitution in a single generation? Because I love the people of the United States of America. Those who insist we must hate China, who treat every Chinese success as a threat and every statistic as propaganda, are not protecting us. They are trying to manipulate the American people with hate, fear, and deceptions. They are feeding our fears and counting on our ignorance. The USA is stronger through learning about the strengths and successes of other nations. We can ONLY improve ourselves by understanding the other 200 nations of people in our shared world. I live here in China. So, I have chosen to share real-world knowledge about China’s strengths and successes. That’s patriotism. That’s hoping we can learn from China’s will to help its people. I love the people of China, yes. But I also love the people of my country, the United States of America. Their government made poverty elimination a central national priority and then did the hard, unglamorous work of building roads, relocating villages, expanding education, and delivering basic healthcare to places that had almost nothing. China’s successes are not just measurable; they are visible. I, me, I’ve personally visited hundreds of Chinese villages, and travelled to every single province of China, and every Special Autonomous Region. China’s success in this regard isn’t propaganda; it’s very real. Pretending this did not happen, or that it only happened because of some sinister design, does not make America safer or stronger. It just makes us less informed. It makes us ignorant. China’s people are not our enemies. They’re our global brothers and sisters. They want stable lives, better futures for their kids, and peaceful relations with the outside world, including the United States. Telling the truth about what China has actually achieved in reducing poverty is patriotic. It is the most patriotic thing I can do: refuse to let my fellow Americans be manipulated by fear and half-truths, and insist we see the world as it is rather than as someone else needs us to see it. That is why I wrote the book. To help us learn about the real world and what is happening in our closest peer.