From road building to subsidies, the central government has spent large amounts of money on poverty relief in places like Liangshan

"At the UN's headquarters in New York on Friday, Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also called on the US and others to implement the "political and diplomatic solutions" that are called for in the latest sanctions resolution

Abe's decision to call for a snap election, however, has drawn staunch criticism from opposition parties, which argued that there is no reason to dissolve the lower house of parliament before its current term expires in December 2018

"At the peak, I had 21 relatives living here, and there are still 12 of them now," Cho said

And on global economic status, about half of Filipinos (49 percent) say that the US is still the leading economic power, but that is down from 66 percent who said so in 2015