In a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, its current leader, Xi Jinping, announced the realization of the party’s goal of “building a moderately prosperous society in all respects,” an ambition first enunciated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s when China’s economic reforms were launched.

“This means,” said Xi, who is also president and commander in chief, “that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.” That is in reference to 2049, the centenary of communist rule.

China’s successes in battling extreme poverty have been widely recognized. Five years ago, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, in an end-of-mission statement, termed the lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of poverty “a staggering achievement.”