From Zhang Xue's "Counterattack" to How to Break Through "The End of Poverty"

Source: Citic Publishing House

March 28, 2026, Portimão, Portugal, Algarve International Circuit.

At the Superbike World Championship (WSBK) event in the SSP category, a French rider crossed the finish line with a staggering 3.685-second lead, driving his Zhang Xue machine 820RR-RS race bike.

In a top-tier event that is usually decided by milliseconds, such a margin means absolute domination. The next day, the same bike won again, delivering back-to-back titles for the round.

This marks the first time a Chinese motorcycle brand has topped the WSBK.

In the past, the event had long been monopolized by international giants such as Ducati, Yamaha, and Kawasaki—companies with decades of technical accumulation. And the one that beat them was a Chinese racing team that had been founded for less than two years, and a man from a remote village in Hunan who had only a junior high school education.

At the moment the champion crossed the line, the 39-year-old man crouched at the edge of the track, covering his face, trembling as he cried.

He is Zhang Xue.

A poor kid who walked out from a leaky earthen house in the mountains of western Hunan, and it took him a full 20 years—today—to stand on the top of the world.

But this is not a simple story of “a poor household producing a noble successor.” Zhang Xue’s life is, in essence, a process of continually breaking through the “poverty mindset trap.”

On this road, every crucial choice he made formed a stark contrast with the internal logic described in the book The Poverty of Itself—those thought patterns that keep people in poverty from ever getting out.

Behind this poor kid who completed his life turnaround, we can’t help but think: Why can some people get out, while others simply can’t?

That rainy night, the boy made an anti-intuitive choice

In 1987, Zhang Xue was born in a remote mountain village in Mayang Miao Autonomous County, Huaihua, Hunan.

His parents divorced; he and his grandmother and younger sister lived in a leaky earthen house. As a child, he hadn’t even realized what “poverty” and “loneliness” really meant. Around age 10, he started bringing up his sister on his own.

At age 14, he first rode a motorcycle.

At that moment, he made a decision: “I know I won’t leave it for the rest of my life.”

That year, he dropped out of school and became an apprentice at a repair shop. His monthly salary was only 300 yuan. Usually, he slept in the attic above the garage. Before daylight, he would get up, open the door, take apart parts, clean them, and assemble them… Black engine oil was always embedded in the cracks of his fingernails, and the wounds on his hands kept reopening.

A year and a half later, he became a repairman who could stand on his own. He even developed a special talent: assembling an engine from parts with his eyes covered.

So his fellow riders gave him a nickname: “the savage”—his pure, wild obsession with motorcycles, like a savage itself.

But Zhang Xue had an even bigger dream in his heart: to become a professional racing driver. He saved 8,000 yuan and bought a used Honda VFR400 with a 20-year service history. Yes, it was older than he was, and everywhere had problems.

But that was where everything began.

In 2006, a turning point appeared.

That year, the Hunan Satellite TV program “Evening” came to Xiangxi to film. Zhang Xue called the program team again and again, saying his riding skills were good and he wanted to demonstrate them on TV. He called countless times; the program team was worn down by his persistence and reluctantly agreed to meet him.

On the day of filming, it started raining heavily. The road was muddy. Zhang Xue rode that broken motorcycle in the rain, repeatedly crashing and ending up covered in mud. The program team shook their heads and prepared to wrap up and leave.

If it were just that, it should have ended here.

But Zhang Xue did something nobody expected. He climbed onto that broken motorcycle and, in the cold rain, followed the program team’s vehicle. He rode all the way from Huaihua to Mayang—more than 100 kilometers—chasing for more than three hours.

In November in Xiangxi, temperatures were only around ten degrees. He wore just two layers of clothing, soaked through and frozen until his lips turned purple. His hands could barely hold the handlebars, yet he still refused to stop.

A reporter asked him, “Is getting on TV really that important?”

He said, “Getting on TV isn’t important. What matters is that a team can see me, let me into the team.”

The reporter asked again, “If nobody still wants you, what would you do?”

He said through tears: “If you’re alone—whether you fail or succeed—if you didn’t do it when you were young, you’ll definitely regret it when you’re old. If you did it when you were young, even if it fails, you won’t regret it when you’re old.”

Fortunately, after that episode aired, Zhang Xue truly was seen by a racing team.

This chase on that rainy night was the first moment in Zhang Xue’s life that broke the “poverty mindset trap.” He did an extreme “anti-intuitive” thing: he poured all his resources—time, energy, and his only courage—into a “investment” that had no immediate return.

When everyone thought, “Forget it,” he chose to push forward one more step.

And The Poverty of Itself: Why We Can’t Escape Poverty, based on its investigation, found that most poor people are exactly the opposite.

The book includes an impressive case. In a remote mountain village in Morocco, the author met a man named Oucha Mback. He had nothing to eat; the house he lived in had no usable water and the sanitation conditions were very poor. But when the author entered his room, he found a television, a parabolic antenna, and a DVD player.

The author asked him: If the whole family can’t even get enough to eat, why buy these things?

He smiled and answered: “Oh, the TV is more important than food!”

This isn’t an isolated case. The book also mentions an Indonesian farmer, Pak. He had been hungry for years, weak and frail, yet his home was filled with televisions, DVD players, mobile phones, and tea leaves, coffee, and sugar. When asked why he didn’t fill his stomach first, he said, “I have to find something to enjoy.”

Also, the two Nobel Prize winners of The Poverty of Itself—through extensive field research—found that when resources are extremely scarce, poor people often prioritize “immediate gratification” instead of “long-term investment.”

These “preferences” aren’t impulsive consumption; they are a way they fight off despair in daily lives that are dull and joyless. But precisely this preference for immediate gratification traps them in “consumption squeeze”—the money that should have been used to invest in the future (skills learning, health maintenance, children’s education) gets spent on the present.

Zhang Xue’s choice was the opposite of this pattern.

When he had only 300 yuan left in his pocket, he spent 260 yuan to buy things for his grandmother, and the remaining money went all into training to learn how to drive. He didn’t spend it on immediate pleasures. He didn’t buy better clothes or indulge in eating and drinking and having fun. Instead, he poured all his resources into a dream that seemed out of reach.

He wasn’t lacking the impulse for immediate gratification; it was just that he understood far more clearly what he truly wanted.

Behind it, we see that a key to getting out of poverty is: restraining the urge for immediate gratification, and spending money and energy on things that will make you better.

God shut one door, and he opened another window

After joining the team, Zhang Xue quickly ran into a wall.

As a professional racer, his old injuries gradually came to light, and his talent wasn’t enough to support him reaching the top of the sport. Injuries, funding, fierce competition… all were obstacles he couldn’t get around.

His dream as a racer was shattered.

But he didn’t, like most people, completely give up after hitting a wall on one path or fall into self-pity. He quickly found another route:

“If I can’t ride the fastest bike, then I’ll go build the fastest one.”

This was his second crucial decision to break through the “thinking trap.”

In 2013, at age 26, Zhang Xue got back on the road again. With only 20,000 yuan saved, he went alone to Chongqing, a city known as the “motorcycle capital.”

With no connections and no money, he ran supplier after supplier. When the money wasn’t enough, he still relied on his wife borrowing from her family…

And his way to start was simple to the point of being almost bare-bones: he first did motorcycle modifications, posted for sale on forums, and built a reputation bit by bit through his solid technical skills.

In 2017, Zhang Xue and his partners founded Kaiwei Motorcycles.

With the first model, 500X, quickly opening the market through lightweight design and strong power, it sold 800 units in its first year, 3,000 in the second year. Later, annual sales broke 30,000 units and revenue reached hundreds of millions of yuan.

In 2023, he led the Kaiwei racing team to participate in the Dakar Rally, becoming the first Chinese motorcycle team in history to finish the race.

However, just when Kaiwei was thriving, a conflict between Zhang Xue and the investors erupted.

Zhang Xue insisted: the money earned must keep being invested into independent R&D—especially engines. He didn’t want to be an “assembly shop” forever, and he didn’t want to be forever choked by foreign brands. But the investors’ logic was: if you make money, you should expand production and pursue returns first.

In 2024, Zhang Xue made an astonishing decision: he gave up all his equity—“clean exit without keeping any stake.”

On the day he resigned, he climbed onto his self-built 450RR, took one last look at the office building in a light drizzle, and posted on his social feed: “If nobody loves themselves anymore, how can you talk about loving others, or loving the world!”

At the time, the entire industry was pessimistic: “If he leaves Kaiwei, he’s nothing.” “Want to race WSBK? Dream on.” …

He didn’t argue.

One month later, Zhang Xue registered a new company using his own name, and his personal shareholding exceeded 73%. He said, “If you engrave your name on the bike, you’re putting your life on the line. If you can’t do it well, then this life is over and the business ends.”

This is a key to breaking the “poverty trap”: not being held hostage by short-term gains and losses, and daring to give up current vested interests for long-term goals.

In The Poverty of Itself, it also lays out another distressing rule behind poverty:

When facing setbacks, poor people are more likely to fall into “cognitive burden,” because long-term survival pressure consumes their mental resources, leading them to doubt themselves and lose the motivation and energy to change. They strengthen their endurance by lowering standards rather than changing their circumstances by improving their abilities.

But Zhang Xue’s choice is the exact opposite. He didn’t lower standards; he raised them even higher. When the path of “riding the fastest bike” didn’t work, he didn’t say, “Forget it.” Instead he said, “Then I’ll build the fastest one.” When investors wanted to make quick money, he didn’t compromise; he chose to give up everything and start over from the beginning.

From the shattering of a racer’s dream to the transition into building bikes; from being kicked out of the company he founded to quitting and starting again from scratch. At every fork in fate, Zhang Xue made an anti-intuitive choice: when a specific dream was smashed by reality, he didn’t stand still. Instead, he quickly found a new exit—building a bike that would allow others to ride at the front.

He turned every “failure” into a stepping stone for the next attack.

An income over 100 million, yet still using that “cracked-screen” old phone

The hardship of entrepreneurship far exceeds what outsiders can imagine.

At the hardest time, Zhang Xue and his wife couldn’t scrape together 20 yuan to buy a dinner. Later, his wife posted the account books from that time on a social platform. The two of them recorded, item by item, every last yuan they borrowed from relatives and friends, and once a debt was paid off, they would cross it out. After 15 years of marriage, they paid off 11 years of debt.

In 2025, Zhang Xue’s motorcycle business generated total annual output value of 750 million yuan, with R&D investment as high as 69.58 million yuan. In the same period, the company posted a loss of 22.78 million yuan.

This means that even under business pressure and still facing challenges to survive, Zhang Xue continued to pour large amounts of capital into independent R&D.

His personal life creates a huge contrast with his business achievements.

After reaching a net worth over 100 million yuan, Zhang Xue still uses an old Huawei phone costing more than 2,000 yuan, with the screen still cracked. For daily client receptions, he uses a standard passenger van.

After he became famous, someone offered to send him a long-wheelbase Rolls-Royce worth 13 million yuan. His response was: “If someone really sends one, he will recruit a secondhand car dealer nearby to come and buy it at an 80% price, then donate the money to charity. I’ll still use a van to receive clients.”

The only “face” he cares about is whether Chinese motorcycles can win on the world stage in a dignified and upright way.

Beyond that, he is immune to all vanity.

This “frugality” isn’t a deliberate self-imposed restraint; it’s a natural reflection of how he prioritizes values inside himself. In his world, only two things are worth giving everything: his love for motorcycles, and his obsession with “building the fastest bike.” Everything else isn’t important.

Indeed, The Poverty of Itself also says that poor people can’t easily escape poverty, and many times it isn’t because they lack ability. It’s because under conditions of resource scarcity, they are more likely to make short-sighted choices—spending money on things that seem “respectable” (like a lavish wedding), rather than on things that can change the future (like fertilizer, education).

The book includes a heartbreaking case: mothers in India start saving money 10 years or even longer in advance to prepare a dowry for their 8-year-old daughter; in South Africa, a single family funeral can cost up to 40% of annual income. If that money were invested—buying seeds, paying for training classes, starting a small shop—it could completely change the trajectory of the entire family. But it gets swallowed by “a sense of ceremony” and “face.”

And Zhang Xue, who came from poverty, broke the habit of being stuck in poverty. He isn’t lacking reasons to spend money—people with net worth over 100 million yuan buy luxury cars, switch to a new phone. Who would think that’s excessive? But he doesn’t need those things to prove himself.

This is also the third key to getting out of poverty: distinguishing what is truly important from what is just vanity. Put your money and energy into things that create long-term value, rather than consuming it on meaningless rituals and external recognition.

In 2026, after winning the championship, Zhang Xue’s motorcycles completely blew up in demand. The retail price of the championship model 820RR (civilian version) is only 43,500 yuan, about one-third of comparable imported bikes. Within 100 hours of the presale, orders exceeded 5,500 units. In the terminal market, delivery lead times for some models are already scheduled for June to July.

Even more surprising is that after the orders exploded, Zhang Xue made a decision that drove all sales managers crazy: anyone with a motorcycle driving age of less than one year is prohibited from purchasing the 820RR.

He said: “I want fewer people to die. I don’t want that 10% sales volume; the company won’t die either way.”

This move was publicly praised by the Ministry of Public Security Traffic Management Bureau: “Real love isn’t indulgence—it’s knowing boundaries. Speed can make people excited, but only responsibility can make love go further.”

“One lifetime, one thing—dig in to the end”

“One lifetime, one thing—dig in to the end”—this isn’t a slogan; it’s a true reflection of Zhang Xue’s 20-year life.

From entering the repair shop at age 14 as an apprentice, to standing on the podium as champion of WSBK at age 39, Zhang Xue’s life trajectory has only one theme: motorcycles.

After winning, a reporter asked him what his secret to success was. He said, “Doing one thing isn’t for the result; it’s because you love it. Maybe the result will truly be different.”

Someone asked him how he could build bikes that are so good. He said, “As long as you really like it, really want to do it, and are willing to put in the effort, how could you not be able to do it? If you don’t know something, you can go learn. Connections can be built slowly. The key is whether you’re willing to do it.”

He said he wasn’t a talent-first kind of competitor; the key was the “dig-in” spirit—constantly wrestling with himself, and always pushing toward the goal.

So what is the result of this kind of “digging in”?

The 820RR-RS race bike, equipped with an independently developed 819cc three-cylinder engine, has a domestic localization rate of core components exceeding 90%. At WSBK—described as the “ultimate testing ground for mass-production bike performance”—Zhang Xue’s motorcycles defeated international giants like Ducati, Yamaha, and Kawasaki, companies with decades and even over a hundred years of technical accumulation.

From a 14th-place finish in its debut at the Australian round to double championships at the Portugal round, only a month separated them. The team used 30 days to complete 12 key technology upgrades. This is the power of “digging in.”

After winning, Zhang Xue said: “Within the next five years, we will capture more than 50% of the market share of international big brands.”

This isn’t arrogance. It’s the certainty of someone who used 20 years to go from a repair shop to the top of the world—his steadfast commitment to the career he loves.

Interestingly, in The Poverty of Itself, the two Nobel Prize winners also raise a thought-provoking question:

Why, even when poor people know that “fertilizer can increase crop yield,” do they often still not buy it when they have money? Why do only 25% of farmers in Kenya use fertilizer each year, even though they clearly know it is an effective way to help them get out of poverty?

The answer is: long-term poverty erodes a person’s ability to think long-term.

When you worry about what you’ll eat tomorrow every day, you simply don’t have spare cognitive bandwidth to think about whether to buy fertilizer next year. Your brain is filled with immediate survival pressure, leaving no room for long-term planning.

Behind this is the fact that poverty isn’t just a lack of material resources; it’s also a limitation in thinking. It makes you short-sighted, able to see only life in the next few days, but not the life three to five years from now.

Zhang Xue’s story offers a reverse proof of this pattern. A poor kid who came out of the mountains—if he can keep “long-term thinking” even under extreme scarcity—spend money learning skills, spend time drilling into engine R&D, and focus his energy on a lofty goal—then he has a chance to jump out of this vicious cycle.

Zhang Xue wasn’t dragged down by the inertia of poverty; instead, he created a kind of “upward acceleration.” This isn’t luck’s favor; it’s the victory of “long-term thinking” over “cognitive burden.”

He used 20 years, step by step, from a repair shop to the top of the world.

Epilogue

Zhang Xue’s story is a story about love; a story about digging in to the end; and a story about just how far a single person can go.

But first and foremost, it’s a story about “how to get out of poverty.”

From a leaky earthen house to the podium of a world champion; from a repair-shop apprentice with a monthly salary of 300 yuan to an entrepreneur with a valuation of 1 billion—using every one of his steps over 20 years, Zhang Xue answers a question that troubles countless people:

A poor kid—why is he able to defy destiny and change his life?

The answer is written into every detail: the stubbornness of chasing for over 100 kilometers on a rainy night at age 19; the pragmatism of starting from a repair shop at age 20; the boldness of carrying 20,000 yuan and starting from zero in Chongqing at age 26; the all-or-nothing decision at age 37 to give up everything and engrave his name on the bike; and his ultimate self-discipline to this day—still using a cracked-screen phone and refusing the temptation of luxury cars…

And behind all of this is a deeper logic that can explain why some people can get out, while others can’t—this logic is written in The Poverty of Itself.

This book is co-authored by two Nobel Prize winners in economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, based on 15 years of on-the-ground investigations into poverty populations across the world’s five continents, as well as a large number of randomized controlled trials.

With easy-to-understand language and vivid cases, it dissects the thinking traps that prevent us from escaping poverty—consumption squeeze, cognitive burden, information scarcity, social pressure—like an invisible net that firmly traps countless people in place.

After reading Zhang Xue’s story, you’ll feel fired up. You’ll think: if he can do it, why can’t I?

The Poverty of Itself may be precisely the “manual” that helps you see clearly those “poverty traps”:

It helps you understand why poor people make choices that seem “irrational”; why simple cash assistance can hardly truly help people escape poverty; and how, with scientific methods, you can step by step get out of the vicious cycle of poverty and break through that unseen wall.

The Poverty of Itself: Why We Can’t Escape Poverty

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo / By

Citic Publishing Group