Youth Challenge

Authors: Chen Taotao, Feng Jian, Lin Yihang, Rong Yu, Qiao Ziyi, Fan Jiwei, An Haozhen, Song Qing

Preface

In 2025, the "China-Latin America Youth Responding to Global Challenges – 2025 Poverty Alleviation Challenge" was successfully held, co-hosted by Tsinghua University, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the University of Chile, the University of the Pacific (Peru), and Minmetals Peru Bombeo Mining Company, among other institutions. This project aims to build a bridge for cross-cultural communication and stimulate the innovative thinking and practical potential of Chinese and Latin American youth in the field of poverty alleviation.

In January 2026, outstanding Latin American youth who stood out in the "2025 Poverty Alleviation Challenge" came to China to carry out in-depth immersion activities including academic exchanges, field visits and cultural experiences. During this period, the Tsinghua University Latin America Center, in conjunction with the Tsinghua University Rural Revitalization Work Station, organized 32 Latin American youth and about 60 Tsinghua University students to form three Sino-Latin American mixed teams, which went to three poverty alleviation demonstration sites—Nanjian in Yunnan, Gaochun in Jiangsu, and Cili in Hunan—for in-depth study. To systematically present the research results, we will launch a series of poverty alleviation case studies focusing on the above three regions. As the first article, this paper focuses on Nanjian, Yunnan—the learning base of the China-Brazil team—and in-depthly analyzes its poverty reduction practices from the perspective of multivariate collaborative governance.

Nanjian Yi Autonomous County is located in western Yunnan Province, at the southern end of Dali Prefecture, at the northern foot of the Ailao and Wuliang Mountains, and on the banks of the Lancang River. It is a typical mountainous ethnic county, with 99.3% of its total area being mountainous. There are 26 ethnic groups living in the county, including Yi, Han, Hui, and Bai, with ethnic minorities accounting for 55% of the total population, among which the Yi people account for more than half. The ethnic culture is rich and colorful, especially famous for the national intangible cultural heritage "Yi Tiaocai" (Yi Dance with Dishes).

It was once a key county for national poverty alleviation and development. In 2013, the poverty incidence rate of the county was as high as 28.05%, integrating "mountainous areas, ethnic minorities, and poverty". It faced multiple challenges such as harsh geographical environment, weak infrastructure, backward industrial development, and prominent poverty caused by illness.

However, since the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation, with the joint efforts of local and external resources, Nanjian has adopted precise policies to address its own poverty problems and solved them one by one. In 2018, it successfully withdrew from the list of poor counties, achieving a historic leap and becoming a vivid and profound sample for observing China’s targeted poverty alleviation strategy and rural revitalization practices.

Next, this paper will select two typical poverty problems in Nanjian—"medical poverty" and "industrial poverty"—and use the "5W1H+" poverty alleviation toolbox as the analytical framework to elaborate on the specific content of the cases from different dimensions: "poverty scenario", "causes of poverty", "poverty alleviation solutions and implementation analysis", and "project effectiveness". On the basis of the "experience and enlightenment" of each individual poverty alleviation case, it will further refine the replicable poverty alleviation strategies and experiences.

I. Nanjian Poverty Alleviation Case 1: Medical Poverty

(I) Introduction to Poverty Scenario (What+When+Where)

Nanjian has a prominent problem of medical poverty, among which congenital heart disease (CHD) in children is typical (What). Nanjian is located at a high altitude, with oxygen content in the air lower than that in plain areas. The incidence of congenital heart disease in children in plateau areas is significantly higher than that in plain areas. Moreover, the local area is mountainous with scattered villages, making it a long distance and high transportation cost for residents to seek medical treatment (Where). In 2013, Tsinghua University became a designated assistance unit for Nanjian, and the problem of congenital heart disease in Nanjian thus attracted the attention of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University (When).

(II) Analysis of Poverty Causes (Why)

Due to its unique geographical environment, Nanjian has a special poverty of high incidence of congenital heart disease in children. The problem has not been solved before, mainly due to three reasons:

1. Weak local health awareness. Before 2013, there was no screening mechanism for congenital heart disease in the local area. Many children were not valued by their parents until obvious symptoms appeared (such as dyspnea after activity, frequent colds, and developmental retardation). When diagnosed, they were often older and in more serious condition.

2. Shortage of targeted local medical resources and lack of rescue capacity. Before 2013, Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital did not have a neonatology department. Critically ill newborns and children with congenital heart disease often needed to be transferred to prefectural or provincial hospitals for a long distance, with high risks on the way. There was a lack of professional teams for pediatric echocardiography, diagnosis of congenital heart disease and postoperative follow-up in the county, and even "unable to treat or dare not accept" complex cases.

3. High costs required for congenital heart disease treatment, which are difficult for local families to bear. The cost of congenital heart disease surgery is usually tens of thousands to more than 100,000 yuan, which is almost unbearable for mountainous families that have just solved the problem of food and clothing. The new rural cooperative medical system (now the urban and rural residents' medical insurance) can reimburse part of the expenses, but the self-paid part is still a heavy burden for poor families.

(III) Poverty Alleviation Solutions and Implementation Strategies (How+Who)

Faced with the dilemma of high incidence of congenital heart disease and lack of medical resources in Nanjian, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University and the local government innovatively explored the "Dali Model", building a closed-loop mechanism of screening and identification—escort and referral—cost resolution—local capacity improvement.

1. Accurate Screening and Identification of Children with Congenital Heart Disease

Screening and identifying children with congenital heart disease is the starting point of the entire work. To address the pain point of lack of medical resources in remote areas and difficulty in detecting children with the disease, the project cooperated with the local government's administrative organization and the technical capacity of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University. First, the local government gave play to its grass-roots mobilization capacity, with cadres at the township and village levels notifying every household door-to-door, organizing all school-age children to conduct centralized preliminary screening at primary screening points such as county hospitals and county maternal and child health hospitals, and initially identifying suspected children. Second, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University set up an expert team, which came to Nanjian at a fixed time every year to provide technical guidance, confirm the diagnosis of children with congenital heart disease, and formulate treatment plans.

2. Build a Green Channel and Escort Children with Congenital Heart Disease to Beijing for Referral Throughout the Process

After the diagnosis, the next step is to solve the practical obstacle of "difficulty in traveling" for families in remote mountainous areas. The local government, health bureau and maternal and child health hospital assumed the responsibility of coordination and escort. According to the operation time determined in the treatment plan by the experts of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University, special personnel were arranged to accompany the children's families to Beijing for treatment, opening up a physical channel from the county to large hospitals.

3. Joint Efforts of Multiple Parties to Solve the Problem of Surgical Costs

After solving the problem of "being able to go", the core challenge is how to make poor families "afford to treat". In response to this, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University innovatively constructed a "three-part" cost-sharing mechanism, namely "a part reimbursed by medical insurance, a part rescued by funds, and a part reduced or exempted by the hospital". The First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University introduced social forces such as the Aiyou Charity Foundation to fill the funding gap beyond medical insurance reimbursement and hospital reduction or exemption. This joint rescue method by the government, hospitals and foundations realized "zero burden" of surgical costs for children from poor families, fundamentally blocking the chain of poverty caused by illness.

4. Further Improve Local Medical Capacity

The assistance of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University for the problem of congenital heart disease in Nanjian is not only limited to directly performing operations for children using its own technical capacity, but also further extended to helping achieve substantial improvement in local medical capacity. On the one hand, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University provided free opportunities for Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital to study in Beijing, and the transportation and accommodation costs during the study period were guaranteed by the assistance funds. On the other hand, in 2021, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University established the "Professor Wang Lianyi Studio" at Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, with experts providing on-site guidance every year and teaching through the teleconsultation platform. These measures not only helped Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital establish a neonatology department, achieving a breakthrough from scratch, but also significantly improved the local capacity in fields such as imaging diagnosis of congenital heart disease through continuous on-site guidance and remote teaching.

Stage (How)	Subject (Who)	Main Role (How)
1. Accurate Screening and Identification	Local government (township government, village committee)	Responsible for notifying every household door-to-door, organizing centralized preliminary screening of school-age children to ensure coverage
	Local hospitals (county maternal and child health hospital, county hospital)	Conduct preliminary screening using basic technical means
	First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University	Set up an expert team for professional screening, identify confirmed children, and formulate treatment plans
2. Referral and Treatment	Local government (county government, health bureau, maternal and child health hospital)	Arrange special personnel to coordinate and escort children to Beijing, solving the problem of travel
	First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University	Receive children for surgical treatment
3. Diversified Financing and Guarantee	Government	Reimburse part of the expenses through channels such as the new rural cooperative medical system
	First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University	Design rescue plans and reduce or exempt part of medical expenses
	Social foundations (such as Aiyou Charity Foundation)	Fill the funding gap, fund most of the surgical expenses, and ensure "zero burden" for poor families
4. Capacity Improvement and "Blood Formation"	First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University	Provide free study opportunities, establish expert studios, and build teleconsultation platforms
	Local hospital (Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital)	Send personnel to study, establish a neonatology department, and use the platform to improve local diagnosis and treatment level

Table 1: Subjects and Their Main Roles in Each Stage of Solving Medical Poverty

(IV) Project Effectiveness

On the one hand, from 2013 to 2025, through accurate screening and zero-burden treatment, the project performed operations for 105 young patients in Nanjian County. Through the three-party cost-sharing mechanism of "medical insurance, funds and hospitals", it directly prevented these families from returning to poverty or falling into poverty due to large medical expenses, safeguarding the future of the families.

On the other hand, the assistance work has greatly improved the local medical capacity. Although Nanjian County still does not have the conditions to carry out congenital heart disease surgery, through the study opportunities provided by the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University and the on-site teaching of the expert studio, a group of local medical and technical backbones have been trained. The level of cardiac color Doppler ultrasound diagnosis in Nanjian County has been significantly improved, and it has the ability to independently carry out screening for congenital heart disease and screening for fetuses with severe cardiac malformations. This not only reduced the birth rate of complex cardiac malformations in infants in Nanjian County, but also allowed children with congenital heart disease from poor families to complete examinations, re-examinations and determine treatment plans in county-level medical institutions.

(V) Experience and Enlightenment

First, targeted poverty alleviation needs to build a multi-party linkage coordination mechanism. The government, hospitals and foundations each perform their duties: the government gives play to its administrative mobilization advantages to solve the problem of "organizational guarantee", hospitals provide core technologies to solve the problem of "how to treat", and foundations introduce social funds to solve the problem of "where the money comes from". This joint force is the foundation for solving the problem of poverty caused by illness.

Second, medical assistance must adhere to the balance between "blood transfusion" and "blood formation". Simple treatment can only solve the urgent need. Only by taking local capacity building and talent training as the starting point can the long-term effect of assistance be achieved and the medical level in remote areas be fundamentally improved.

II. Nanjian Poverty Alleviation Case 2: Industrial Poverty

(I) Introduction to Poverty Scenario (What+When+Where)

As a typical poor county, the general poverty problem facing Nanjian is that it has not developed a strong modern industry—although it has tea as a characteristic industry, it has not been able to drive poverty alleviation (What). Although Nanjian is located in high mountains, it provides unique natural conditions for the development of the tea industry: tea gardens are distributed in the high-altitude subtropical mountainous areas of the Wuliang and Ailao Mountains in the Lancang and Red River basins, with an excellent ecological environment. The produced tea has high amino acid content and a fresh taste, making it a major tea-producing area in Dali Prefecture for a long time. The tea industry covers about 50% of the county's population (Where). In 1985, the state-owned Nanjian Tea Factory was established, but over the years, the Nanjian tea industry has faced a series of problems and has been unable to grow and strengthen. Since 2009, the local government has taken a series of measures, focusing on organizational guarantee, technological improvement, and extended development, and finally made it an important path for local residents to get rid of poverty (When).

(II) Analysis of Poverty Causes (Why)

Nanjian has superior conditions for the development of the tea industry, but it has not been able to drive poverty alleviation, mainly for the following reasons:

1. Backward business concepts. The local area generally focuses on planting rather than management, and production rather than the market. More than 80% of the tea gardens are operated in a scattered manner, resulting in a sharp contradiction between small-scale production and the large market. The small-scale peasant operation method cannot withstand market risks, leading to low efficiency and even losses.

2. Severe lack of capital investment and backward production technology leading to low efficiency. The county finance is tight, and local tea farmers and tea farms have little or no accumulated capital, so they have no more funds to invest in tea production. Farmers use simple tea planting methods, extensive tea garden management, simple processing machinery, and low market share.

(III) Poverty Alleviation Solutions and Implementation Strategies (How+Who)

The tea industry is a traditional industry in Nanjian and also the most important characteristic industry in Nanjian. Its development has gone through a relatively complex process. Through data analysis and field research, since 2009, the development of the Nanjian tea industry can be roughly divided into three stages, and different subjects have played different roles in each stage.

Stage 1: Government Guidance, Innovating Organizational Models to Lay the Foundation for the Industry (2009-2017)

To solve the contradiction between small farmers and the large market, under the guidance of the county party committee and government, Nanjian has gradually formed a typical "enterprise + professional cooperative + farmer" model since 2009. The core of this model is: enterprises are responsible for intensive processing and brand sales; cooperatives are responsible for standardized primary processing, organizing tea farmers, unifying standards, purchasing fresh leaves, and docking "order agriculture" with enterprises; farmers plant and pick tea according to standards, and deliver fresh leaves to cooperatives or tea farms, forming a relatively stable interest linkage. This model is not created out of thin air, but a product of Nanjian learning from mature experience and combining with local reality in the tide of national agricultural industrialization.

1. Origin of the Model: Inheriting the Experience of National Agricultural Industrialization

After the reform and opening up, to solve the contradiction between "small-scale production and the large market" under the household contract management system, various regions have experienced exploration from "company + farmer" to "company + cooperative + farmer". The "Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Law", adopted in 2006 and implemented in 2007, gave cooperatives a clear legal status as independent market entities. In 2012, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Supporting the Development of Leading Agricultural Industrialization Enterprises", clearly proposing to "vigorously develop the organizational model of leading enterprises connecting farmers' professional cooperatives and driving farmers", marking that "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" has become the main industrialization model promoted at the national level.

Against this background, Nanjian County accurately captured this policy signal. Since 2009, the Nanjian County Tea Station, aiming at the problems of tea farmers such as "low degree of organization, irregular production, and vulnerability to market fluctuations", has learned from foreign experience to help tea farmers establish tea professional cooperatives. Around 2010, a number of cooperatives were registered in Gonglang Town, Wuliangshan Town and other places, formally introducing this nationwide experience into the Nanjian tea industry. Since the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation, the County Agriculture and Rural Bureau and the County Poverty Alleviation Office have taken the lead in cultivating professional cooperatives in Nanjian, helping to improve organizational structures such as member assemblies and councils, standardize systems such as financial management, and improve the management and development level of professional cooperatives.

2. Promoting Farmers to Join Cooperatives: Party Building Leadership and Demonstration Drive

The core of the successful operation of this mechanism is that scattered farmers are willing to join cooperatives. In Nanjian, this is not only inseparable from visible economic benefits, but also from trustworthy organizational guarantees. First, Party building leadership is the cornerstone of farmers' trust. Nanjian has implemented the "Party branch + cooperative + farmer" model, with village general Party branches taking the lead in establishing cooperatives, and Party members and cadres taking the lead in joining cooperatives and taking action. For example, the Xiaowan Qunmin Cooperative was led by Party members and established a Party branch, using the local village collective Party building work funds to invest as start-up capital to "guarantee" risks for farmers. Second, cooperatives reduce costs by unifying the purchase of agricultural materials such as seeds, fertilizers and agricultural machinery, and lock in profits through protective price purchases and order agriculture. Cooperatives in tea-producing areas such as Gonglang Town and Xiaowan East Town of Nanjian County have signed minimum price purchase agreements with tea farmers and docked with enterprise orders, making the income of tea farmers about 20% higher than that of non-members, which has also played a successful demonstration role.

3. Gradual Formation of Stable Interest Linkage Between Enterprises, Cooperatives and Farmers

As mentioned earlier, in the "enterprise-cooperative-farmer" mechanism, each subject has a clear division of labor: enterprises are responsible for intensive processing and brand sales; cooperatives are responsible for organizing tea farmers and docking "order agriculture" with enterprises; farmers plant and pick tea according to standards, and the three form a relatively stable interest linkage. In this model, cooperatives play an indispensable role as an intermediate link: on the one hand, cooperatives sign minimum price purchase agreements with tea farmers, guarantee their basic production profits according to the planting area of farmers, and establish a stable interest linkage with tea farmers; on the other hand, cooperatives negotiate order prices with tea enterprises as a whole, ensuring that the price purchased by enterprises from cooperatives is not lower than the minimum price agreed by cooperatives and farmers. Moreover, cooperatives also provide unified technical guidance and quality standards, effectively solving the pain points of "difficulty in selling and low prices" under the scattered operation model. Under the above conditions, through the update of the organizational model, more profits of the local tea industry have benefited the masses, and tea farmers have achieved stable income increase through the "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" model; at the same time, it has laid a foundation for the further development of the tea industry in the future.

Stage 2: External Empowerment to Break Through Development Bottlenecks (2018-2023)

After the initial consolidation of the industrial foundation, Nanjian promoted technological upgrading and expanded industrial boundaries by introducing external resources. Among them, Tsinghua University-run enterprises helped improve technical production capacity, tea industry research institutions empowered product quality optimization, and the local government further expanded the diversified application scenarios of the tea industry and introduced external capital to explore the development path of tea-tourism integration.

1. Targeted Assistance from Tsinghua University-run Enterprises to Significantly Improve Local Production Capacity

In 2018, Tsinghua University carried out targeted assistance. Tsinghua Holdings, a university-run enterprise, established Wuliangshan Qingyun Huinong Industrial Co., Ltd., which acquired the Nanjian Tuling Tea Factory. A modern production line with an annual production capacity of 3,000 tons was built, various new forms of tea production equipment were introduced, product forms and packaging designs were innovatively developed, brand story empowerment was carried out with "Tsinghua genes", and customized products such as anniversary commemorative tea were launched. Thus, Tuling Phoenix became the largest and most effective tea factory in Nanjian County, and the local area truly had a leading enterprise that could play a leading role.

2. In-depth Cooperation with Tea Industry Research Institutions

In 2019, Nanjian signed a cooperation agreement with the team of Professor Zhou Hongjie from Yunnan Agricultural University, establishing the "Wuliangshan Alpine Ecological Tea Industry Professor Zhou Hongjie Expert Workstation", which carried out systematic research on the quality formation mechanism of alpine ecological tea, ecological tea garden planting, Pu'er tea processing technology, etc., and organized special training on tea processing, tea garden management, green prevention and control in the fields. The team guided many tea enterprises to complete the formulation of enterprise standards and participated in the compilation of local standards and group standards. In the same year, "China Nanjian Tea Industry" compiled by the team was published, systematically transforming scattered experience and wisdom into an inheritable knowledge system.

3. Preliminary Exploration of Tea-Tourism Integration

The rise of Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Valley is representative. From 1995 to 2000, Taiwanese businessmen planted winter cherry blossoms to shade tea trees, forming a 1,000-mu "Cherry Blossom Valley" by 2012. In 2015, the government built it into a national AAA-level tourist attraction, but at this time it was still "tea garden + viewing platform + simple supporting facilities". In 2017, the "China·Nanjian Tiaocai Art Festival and Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Festival" was held, where the government carried out on-site investment promotion, attracting Shanghai Guangyu International Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. to sign a 2 billion yuan framework investment to build the "Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Valley 5A-level Scenic Area and Characteristic Town Development and Construction Project". Since 2018, the investment has officially started construction, with two phases of construction of resort hotels, theme commercial blocks, performance theaters, sightseeing farms and other facilities. In 2023, Cherry Blossom Valley was recognized as the "Dali Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Valley Tea Park", and the scenic area was officially opened to the public.

In addition to Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Valley, the Nanjian County Culture and Tourism Bureau has systematically built the "Wuliangshan Tea Storage Valley" as a model for tea-tourism integration. The construction of the Tea Storage Valley started in 2019 and was fully rolled out in 2020 with funds from the Shanghai-Yunnan Cooperation Poverty Alleviation Industrial Park project, focusing on the construction of oil road construction, ancient tea garden and traditional village protection, and tea-tourism integration projects. In 2023, Wuliangshan Tea Storage Valley also successfully created a national AAA-level tourist attraction, becoming a new highlight of tea-culture-tourism integration in Nanjian.

Stage 3: Strategic Transformation Towards In-depth Integration (2024 to Present)

Against the background of fierce competition in the "red sea" of traditional green tea and Pu'er tea, Nanjian has chosen white tea as a breakthrough in recent years, promoting the industry towards differentiated development and in-depth integration, and further promoting tea-culture-tourism integration with the tea industry as the main driver.

1. Differentiated Breakthrough with White Tea

In 2024, the Nanjian government proposed the goal of building the "No. 1 White Tea County in Yunnan", establishing a 50 million yuan special fund for the white tea industry, which is used for tea garden transformation, equipment renewal, brand promotion, etc.; cooperating with the Tea Research Institute of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences to formulate the group standard "Technical Regulations for Processing Alpine White Tea in Wuliangshan, Nanjian". The government also actively attracted Dabang White Tea to settle in Nanjian, built a Yunnan white tea industrial chain platform, and output unified product standards; enterprises such as Huaqing Tea Industry introduced Fujian white tea technology, developed characteristic products such as "Moonlight White" and "Yunling Silver Needle", and launched creative products such as white tea ice cream and white tea milk tea to attract young consumer groups.

2. Comprehensive Upgrade of Culture and Tourism

In 2024, Nanjian County held a meeting to specially review the 4A creation plan of Cherry Blossom Valley. The County Culture and Tourism Bureau then used financial funds to continuously improve infrastructure such as tourist service centers, viewing platforms, and self-driving camps, promoting tea gardens to become scenic spots and tea products to become tourist commodities. Finally, Wuliangshan Cherry Blossom Valley was upgraded to a national AAAA-level tourist attraction in 2025, becoming a popular destination in Yunnan in winter. After the construction and opening of the leading scenic area, surrounding residents have actively developed farmhouses and homestays, with significantly increased income. "Nanjian Tiaocai", as a national intangible cultural heritage, its folk Tiaocai teams also perform regularly in scenic areas and festivals, becoming an important part of cultural and tourism products.

Stage	Key Steps (How)	Subject (Who)	Core Role/Specific Actions (How)
Stage 1: Government Guidance to Lay the Foundation (2009-2017)	Organizational Model Innovation (Enterprise + Cooperative + Farmer)	County Government/Tea Station	Capture policy signals, guide the establishment of cooperatives; provide policy support and standardized guidance
		Professional Cooperatives	Unify agricultural materials to reduce costs, standardize primary processing, dock enterprise orders; sign minimum price agreements with farmers to guarantee risks
		Village Party Branch/Party Members and Cadres	Take the lead in establishing cooperatives, take the lead in joining cooperatives, invest with collective funds, and solve the problem of farmers' trust
		Tea Farmers	Plant and pick according to standards, join cooperatives, fulfill the obligation of delivering fresh leaves, and obtain stable income
		Enterprises	Be responsible for intensive processing and brand sales; transfer part of profits to feed back tea farmers through order agriculture
Stage 2: External Empowerment to Break Through Bottlenecks (2018-2023)	1. Tsinghua Targeted Assistance	Tsinghua University-run Enterprises (Qingyun Huinong)	Capital and technology input: acquire tea factories; invest in building modern production lines; inject "Tsinghua genes" for brand empowerment and develop customized products
		Local Tea Enterprises (Tuling Phoenix)	Undertake resources, upgrade production capacity, and become the largest and most effective tea factory in the county
	2. In-depth Scientific Research Cooperation	Yunnan Agricultural University Research Team (Professor Zhou Hongjie's Team)	Establish an expert workstation; carry out mechanism research and field training; formulate standards, write works, and systematize the knowledge system
	3. Preliminary Exploration of Tea-Tourism Integration	County Government	Planning and investment, building Cherry Blossom Valley (3A) and Tea Storage Valley (3A); using Shanghai-Yunnan cooperation funds to build infrastructure; holding cherry blossom festivals for investment promotion
		External Capital (Shanghai Guangyu, etc.)	Project investment, signing investment in heavy asset projects such as characteristic towns, hotels, and commercial blocks
		Taiwanese Businessmen/Huaqing Tea Industry	Plant cherry blossoms in the early stage to form a landscape base; participate in scenic area operation
Stage 3: Strategic Transformation and In-depth Integration (2024 to Present)	1. Differentiated Breakthrough with White Tea	County Government	Strategic leadership, establishing the goal of "No. 1 White Tea County in Yunnan"; setting up a special fund; formulating group standards; introducing external brands
		Research Institutions (Tea Research Institute of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences)	Cooperate in formulating processing technical regulations
		Tea Enterprises (Dabang, Huaqing, etc.)	Product innovation, introducing new technologies; developing "Moonlight White" and white tea ice cream and other derivatives; building an industrial chain platform
	2. Comprehensive Upgrade of Culture and Tourism	County Government/Culture and Tourism Bureau	Lead the 4A creation of Cherry Blossom Valley; improve public infrastructure (tourist centers, camps, etc.)
		Surrounding Residents/Farmers	Operate farmhouses and homestays to participate in and benefit
		Cultural Subjects (Tiaocai Teams)	Regular performances to enrich the content of cultural and tourism products; achieve income increase

Table 2: Subjects and Their Main Roles in Each Stage of Tea Industry Development

(IV) Poverty Alleviation Effectiveness

On the one hand, the income of tea farmers has been significantly improved. The tea industry covers about 50% of the county's population. Through mechanisms such as cooperatives, leading enterprises, and order agriculture, small farmers have been embedded in the entire industrial chain, achieving "stable income increase without returning to poverty". The average annual income of tea farmer households has increased from more than 7,000 yuan in 2011 to 14,000 yuan in 2021. In addition to selling tea, farmers can also obtain stable wage income in tea gardens, tea enterprises and scenic areas. For example, Huaqing Tea Industry employs more than 1,000 farmers from more than 800 households around it every year to engage in tea picking, processing, sales and scenic area management, paying more than 10 million yuan in wages every year, driving the average household income of the masses to exceed 12,000 yuan.

On the other hand, tea-culture-tourism projects based on the tea industry have also become a source of income for surrounding residents. More than 50 farmhouses and homestays have been developed by farmers around Cherry Blossom Valley, some of which have an annual income of 500,000 to 600,000 yuan. There are 136 non-hereditary "Tiaocai" teams in Nanjian, with each person earning about 12,000 yuan per year, and the annual output value of the Tiaocai cultural industry is close to 10 million yuan.

As a former national-level poor county, relying on the tea industry and tea-culture-tourism integration, Nanjian achieved poverty alleviation and hat removal ahead of schedule in 2018, with a total of 56,700 poor people lifted out of poverty.

(V) Experience and Enlightenment

First, the government cannot be absent or overstep in the process of industrial development, and the key lies in finding the right time and way to intervene. When the tea industry started, the Nanjian government introduced an advanced national model for organizational innovation to lay the foundation for industrial development. In the growth period of the industry, the government focused on being a "platform builder", introduced external resources, handed over the right to operate to enterprises and the market, and focused on public goods supply and environment creation, avoiding improper intervention in the operation of market entities.

Second, the key to improving the organization of farmers lies in establishing trust and visible benefits. Through the "Party branch + cooperative + farmer" model, Nanjian solved the problem of trust and organization of scattered farmers. Only by strengthening trust through Party building leadership and locking in benefits through the minimum guarantee mechanism can we truly mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers to participate in industrial development and realize the effective connection between small farmers and the large market.

Third, building an accurate docking and cooperation network of various external resources ultimately needs to focus on local capacity building. In the process of the development of the Nanjian tea industry, many external institutions have been introduced, such as Tsinghua University-run enterprises, the research team of Yunnan Agricultural University, Shanghai Guangyu Company, and Dabang White Tea. These institutions have unique advantages and played differentiated roles in industrial development. However, industrial poverty alleviation must avoid falling into the dependency trap of "waiting, relying on and asking for help". External resources should serve local development—for example, Tsinghua University-run enterprises have brought modern production lines, brand management concepts and high-end network resources (such as the anniversary tea project); Yunnan Agricultural University has provided technical guidance and training as well as technical standard support; Dabang White Tea has built the first Yunnan white tea industrial chain platform in the local area, outputting unified product standards to farmers, primary processing workshops and processing enterprises. These are typical examples of developing local capacity.

III. Summary of Nanjian Poverty Alleviation Experience

Nanjian's poverty alleviation practice is not only the success of two isolated cases, but also a vivid interpretation of the logic of poverty alleviation governance. By using the "5W1H+" analytical framework to carefully decompose the poverty alleviation practices in the two dimensions of medical care and industry, we can extract three core experiences of the poverty alleviation logic.

First, Poverty Alleviation Governance Needs to Build a Multivariate Collaborative Network, and the "Leading Subject" is the Top Priority

From the perspective of "5W1H+", complex systematic poverty often involves multiple stakeholders, and a single subject cannot solve all problems alone, requiring the joint participation of multiple forces. In Nanjian's practice, different subjects have assumed differentiated functions: in medical poverty alleviation, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University output core technologies and talents, social foundations injected charitable funds, local governments provided organizational mobilization guarantees, and local hospitals undertook capacity transfer; in industrial poverty alleviation, the government took the lead in building a basic organizational governance model, enterprises were responsible for intensive processing and market development, cooperatives organized farmers' production and negotiated orders, research institutes supported technological research and development and standard formulation, and external enterprises introduced advanced production concepts. This shows that each subject performs its own duties in the system and is indispensable.

However, the participation of multiple parties, if lacking core integration, is likely to lead to resource fragmentation. Nanjian's experience shows that effective poverty alleviation must clarify a "leading subject", whose core function is to build a platform to weave the scattered "Who"—government, market, and social forces—into a tight collaborative network. The bearer of this role is not fixed: in the medical case, the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University became the leader by virtue of its technical advantages, linking the government and foundations through designing plans; in the industrial case, the local government became the leader, laying the foundation for the industry by building the "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" organizational structure through administrative power in the initial stage of industrial development, and timely returning the right to operate to the market after introducing external resources in the growth period of the industry, focusing on public goods supply and environment creation. In different countries and contexts, the "leading subject" can be undertaken by different institutions. But no matter who leads, its commonality is: the leader must have strong resource integration ability and appeal, and build an open and inclusive cooperation mechanism to form a joint force of various subjects in different links.

Second, Effective Poverty Alleviation Must Activate the Endogenous Motivation of "Vulnerable Groups" Through Mechanism Design

In the dimension of "Who", vulnerable groups are often defined as passive recipients, but this is precisely the root cause of poverty alleviation failure. Nanjian's experience shows that only by transforming vulnerable groups from "passive recipients" to "active participants" can poverty alleviation be viable. This requires establishing a linkage mechanism that can stimulate endogenous motivation and break the dependency dilemma of "giving people fish".

In Nanjian's industrial practice, through the "Party branch + cooperative + farmer" model, a clear interest linkage mechanism has been established. Cooperatives lock in benefits through minimum price purchases, and Party members and cadres establish trust through demonstration and guidance, allowing farmers to see tangible economic returns. This mechanism design transforms external assistance resources into internal input motivation for farmers, making vulnerable groups realize that poverty alleviation is in their own interests, not just the government's task. From Nanjian's experience, we can see that only when vulnerable groups gain dignity in participation and see benefits in investment can they fundamentally overcome the psychology of "waiting, relying on and asking for help" and achieve the transformation from "needing me to get rid of poverty" to "I want to get rid of poverty".

Third, a Sustainable Poverty Alleviation Strategy Must Build a Transformation Mechanism for "Local Capacity Building"

Poverty alleviation is not only about solving the current survival problem, but also about building future development capacity. The injection of external resources is often temporary, while the solution to poverty requires long-term effectiveness. Therefore, an effective poverty alleviation strategy cannot stop at the one-way input of resources, but must design a set of mechanisms to transform external resources into local endogenous development capacity. Nanjian's medical and industrial assistance has deeply confirmed this logic: in the medical field, the strategy design did not stop at emergency rescue of "experts performing operations", but left a non-transferable local medical team and diagnosis and treatment technology through mechanisms such as establishing expert studios and providing study opportunities; in the industrial field, assistance did not stop at the short-term benefits of "selling tea", but built a local industrial "blood formation" function through mechanisms such as formulating production standards and cultivating local technical talents. This enlightens us that through institutional design to achieve knowledge transfer, technological empowerment and talent training, and build a local "immune system" for self-development and self-risk response, is the key to blocking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and ensuring the sustainability of poverty alleviation effects. This is a vivid embodiment of China's poverty alleviation wisdom of "giving people fish is not as good as giving people fishing", and it is also one of the most universal poverty alleviation methodologies.

In summary, Nanjian's practice has profoundly revealed the basic logic of poverty alleviation governance: the elimination of poverty depends not only on the one-way input of resources, but also on the ability to build a sound ecosystem led by a leading subject, coordinated by multiple forces, and actively participated by vulnerable groups. Through the systematic deconstruction of the "5W1H+" framework, we can see that the key to Nanjian's success lies in solving the three major problems of "who will organize", "how to activate" and "how to sustain" through mechanism design, thus achieving a fundamental leap from "passive assistance" to "independent development". Although the institutional environment and resource endowments of different countries and regions vary greatly, this methodology of accurately identifying the root causes of problems, building a collaborative governance platform, and focusing on local capacity building has cross-border reference value. The Nanjian case is not only a vivid footnote to China's targeted poverty alleviation strategy, but also contributes China's wisdom and practical experience on "how to build sustainable poverty alleviation capacity" to the global poverty alleviation cause.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the People's Government of Nanjian Yi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, Tsinghua Rural Academy of Nanjian, Yunnan, Tsinghua Rural Revitalization Work Station Nanjian Station, People's Hospital of Nanjian Yi Autonomous County, Nanjian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and Yunnan Tuling Phoenix Tea Industry Co., Ltd. for their research support for this study.

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 Order agriculture, also known as contract agriculture, refers to an agricultural operation model in which farmers sign production