There is some truth to this structural explanation but it cannot be the entire truth. One indication is that the Chinese poverty figures are highly sensitive to the definition of poverty line. At the poverty line of US$1 per day, in 2002, 7 percent of the Chinese population lived in absolute poverty, but when the poverty line was redrawn at US$2 a day, this fraction increased to 45 percent (World Bank 2003). The ethnic and geographic explanation is unable to explain this high level
