After five decades in the remote mountains of one of China’s poorest provinces, Zou Xingqun recently moved to a new apartment in a nearby town — part of a government drive to relocate 3.4m people this year in the hope of eliminating rural poverty.
But after just a month of town life, Zou is back in her ancestral hamlet, two hours’ walk by twisting paths from the nearest paved road. Her dirt-floored cottage’s brick walls are papered with mouldering newspaper, while a wood-burning stove and a few items of battered wooden furniture sit under a thatched roof.
“Most of us are staying put, and those who moved are returning,” said Ms Zou, 53. Recalling her government-subsidised home in the county town of Zhucang, she said: “There’s no water there, no jobs there, nothing has been sorted out. There wasn’t even water for flushing the toilet.”