Yes, China has homelessness and poverty

That set of essential facts is contra "Aunt Fanny" (Rainer Shea's auntie? Max Blumenthal's? depends on whether she's just clueless or self-deceiving, to be the former's, or a paid shill, to be the latter's) on Twitter claiming neither exist in the Xi Jinping Middle Kingdom.

In any case, they're clearly a Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddler and drinker, hence pulling out my years-old but still valuable photoshopping.

In my first response, I went with the former, due to the small amount of followers they have:

There's no poverty in China? Really? What planet of fucking gullibility or Xi Jinping PR do you live on? Are you Rainier Shea's aunt from The People's Republic of Humboldt County?

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) August 13, 2023

Brookings, among others, sets her straight on poverty. Brookings notes that Xi did declare poverty over in 2020, while dropping hints this may have been in part anti-COVID coverup  PR. As for whether that's true or not, Brookings says yes with a BIG asterisk, the big being the amount of bar-lowering Beijing has done to claim that, as in lowering the poverty bar line by two-thirds from where it should be. Gee, the US would be almost poverty-free, too, by that standard.

Homelessness? The Lancet addresses that in respect to the mentally ill in China. For the big picture, there's this Wiki page aptly entitled "homelessness in China." Per it, homelessness among rural Chinese migrating to big cities for urban jobs has been a known problem for 20 or more years and no, it hasn't gone away. As far as Chinese compassion, The Lancet notes that COVID lockdowns stripped away vital services from many mentally ill homeless people, and cites specific examples.

I mean, China has surely done something to cut poverty and homelessness, but in reality, Chinese data on issues like this are about as trustworthy as legend vs reality on Chinese COVID deaths.