But it's not just the cities where the gains are being logged. We visited Xipi village, part of Fu'an City, where thousands of boat dwellers have been resettled over the past decades. The project – involving extensive reclamation works – is held up as a showpiece of China's poverty-alleviation efforts. The precarity of life on cramped boats, with up to three generations working and sleeping under a leaky roof, has been swapped for modern conveniences and access to healthcare and education.

Just as the fishing folk of Xipi are enjoying transformed lives, so too are the residents of Chixi village, near the city of Ningde. Residents of Chixi and a dozen nearby hamlets have been resettled into a new village. The inhabitants of the remote mountainous area – mostly members of the She ethnic group – were first targeted for assistance in the 1980s. A museum in Ningde documents their journey from squalor, when no electricity, running water or roads was their lot. As with Xipi, eco-tourism is part of the mix that is building sustainable incomes in Chixi. Visitors now flock to the area for its white tea.