"Hi, village chief. Spring has come to Shibadong. How is Thinsom?" he replies. Then the two begin exchanging the latest developments in their respective villages.

The exchange, recorded in early April, was part of a regular video call between two villages that became "international sister villages" in 2023.

But what makes this unusual is not the call itself — rather, what it represents: China is now exporting the playbook that has lifted Shibadong, and countless villages like it across the country, out of poverty since 2013.

When the sister village pact was signed in late 2023, Thinsom was a remote settlement of wooden houses reached by dirt roads. There was not a single kindergarten. Farmers coaxed just one rice harvest a year from parched fields.

Today, an 8.6-kilometer-long irrigation canal has been cleared. A bright new preschool stands next to a reading room. And villagers talk of a second annual rice crop.

"The new classroom gives children a safe place to learn — and parents now care more about education. The repaired canal has made farming more productive," Padith told his counterpart during the call. He added that the village plans to explore rural tourism and specialty products, following Shibadong's example.