THE Chinese embassy in South Africa has partnered with the country’s Department of Social Development to accelerate rural development and improve the lives of poor communities. China has mastered the art of taking impoverished communities out of their misery through a carefully planned empowerment programme that places the poor in the driving seat of their destiny. The People’s Republic of China has long adopted a highly-rated model known as the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Programme. This has resulted in some 800 million previously poor people being catapulted into the middle class and the country’s booming economy becoming the world’s fastest growing…