| Throughout the course of human development, poverty has always been a severe obsession of the society. There are a great number of needy people both in the developed and developing countries around the world, therefore, fighting against poverty has always been an essential strategy of every government to promote economic development and lessen social concussion. China, a developing country with the largest population of the world, has made a great contribution to human being as a whole in poverty alleviation on both quantity and degree in the past two decades. However, there are still a large number of needy people across the remote mountainous areas, and particularly, the minority nationality regions in the middle and west China. Because they are large in quantity and high in possibility of returning back to be needy, their poverty alleviation becomes an arduous task to the government and an obstruction to build a well-off and harmonious society in an all-round way. Why can't they still get rid of poverty after more than two decades of poverty alleviation project taken in these areas? This paper holds that one of the key causes of the problem is that poverty is transmitted from generation to generation, namely Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty (ITP). Therefore, the ITP theory provides us a new angle of view to further understand the poverty of peasants in the remote backward mountainous areas. The ITP theory believes that poverty and the poverty-related disadvantages and causes transmit from the older to the younger generations (especially from parents to children). It is suggested that ITP compels the children duplicate their parents'poverty circumstances and transfers the poverty and poverty-related disadvantages to the next generation. Poverty and the poverty-related disadvantages may also transmit in some communities or classes from the older to the younger generations. The contents of ITP mainly include parentage (such as classes, status); disadvantages (such as opportunities, rights); different forms of capitals (such as human, social-cultural, social-political, financial /material and environmental / natural capitals). The causes of ITP mainly include four factors: social structure and system, community, family background and individual diathesis; but the most essential factors are the rights and opportunities of obtaining education and social security. In this paper, we use the theory of ITP and its research achievements abroad for reference. Based on the findings of on-the-spot investigation in the minority nationality communities of Tongdao Dong autonomy county on the borders of Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces, the paper focuses on analyzing the causes of poverty transmission all-sidedly and summarizing the essential features, developing trends and social consequences of ITP. After looking back to the anti-poverty policies that carried out for more than two decades in our country, we bring forward some policy proposals. This paper consists of three parts, in addition to the introduction and the conclusion. In the introduction, we briefly introduce the purpose and significance of this study, the ways of study, and the statue quo of academic study on this subject in China and the rest of the world, and define the key concepts of "peasant", "poverty"and "ITP"used in this paper, as well as mainly review the development course of the ITP theories and their main viewpoints. From part one to part three, we, through on-the-spot investigations and data analysis, describe the situations of poverty and ITP of the peasants across the minority nationality regions on the boarder areas of Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces, and generalize the essential characteristics of ITP. After reviewing and summarizing the basic theoretical viewpoints on the causes of ITP and combining with the practical situations of the minority nationalities in the mountain areas, we analyze ITP from three aspects----the society, the family background and the poor individuals, and find out that the causes of ITP include the factors of history, social system, culture, education, right, and social security etc, and particularly, the factors of poor family background and poor individuals. At last, we draw a conclusion that ITP is not only the cause, but also the consequence of chronic poverty of the minority peasants. Through on-the-spot investigations and data study, we discuss in detail the negative affects of ITP to the society, the poor families and the poor individuals. And we put forward some constructive suggestions and countermeasures to eliminate ITP problems in the minority nationality regions: on policy, adjust the poverty alleviation strategy, determine the supporting targets, and improve the effects of poverty alleviation; on system, push forward a system reform to remove the systematic barriers of blocking development in the minority nationalities regions, and ensure existence and development of the poor; on education, speed up the education system reform, increase investment to compulsory education in the minority nationality communities, and eliminate the poverty of education and knowledge so as to improve the human resources of children and youth and at last eliminate the vicious circle of ITP. In the conclusion, we sum up the main points of this paper. We hold that although a great achievement on poverty alleviation has been made in China, it is still extremely difficult to eliminate ITP problem in this country in a short period of time. The only ways out are to further increase investment on poverty alleviation projects from the government, strive to promote economic development across the poor mountainous areas to increase peasants'income and improve their living and productive conditions, give priority to develop education so as to improve human resources in the minority nationalities regions, and remove systematic obstacles on transferring the surplus labor forces of the rural areas and increase employment opportunities etc. Only in these ways, can the ITP problems be solved ultimately, the social disturbances caused by a too wide disparity between the rich and the poor be lessened effectively, and the lofty ideal of building a well-off and harmonious society in an all-round way be achieved at last.
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