A massive wealth gap in China has prompted officials to regulate “excessive” wealth

“Common prosperity” in China would be ensured by restricting excessive riches, said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, according to Xinhua, China’s official state-run media. Chinese officials say the announcement marks a more aggressive approach to the country’s lopsided wealth distribution.

It was announced during the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs’ 10th meeting, according to Xinhua’s sources. The discussion was also attended by Premier Li Keqiang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Yang, and officials from a number of other ministries.

At the conference, the government acknowledged China had a lax economic strategy that allows some people and regions to get richer first. According to a description of the meeting released by Xinhua, officials at the meeting committed to expand China’s middle class and increase the earnings of low-income families. China would also restrict “excessively high salaries,” according to Xinhua, however officials at the meeting did not clarify what constitutes “excessively” high income. Upon Insider’s request for comment on this article, a spokesperson of the Chinese government did not immediately reply. Growing from $2.23 trillion in 2000 to $11.8 trillion in 2020, China’s GDP has grown at a rapid pace in the recent two decades. The only big country in the world to saw economic growth last year was China, despite the pandemic outbreak.

In addition, there is a huge wealth difference in this country. China’s richest 20 percent earned more than 10 times as much as the lowest 20 percent in 2020, according to a Bloomberg report According to the World Inequality Database, the country’s richest 10 percent earned 41 percent of the country’s revenue in 2018, while the poorest 50 percent received only 14.4 percent. China’s new leader has set himself the goal of creating a “moderately prosperous society” by the year 2020, and he has pledged to eradicate extreme poverty by then. “Britain’s 1.4 billion people will have lifted nearly 100 million people out of terrible poverty in eight years,” the BBC said in 2020. Experts, on the other hand, question the validity of this claim, given that the poverty level in China is $1.69, compared to the $1.90 set by the World Bank.