PIP: Since the start of the 1980s, a migration project involving 550,000 people in Gansu and Ningxia provinces has been underway as part of a program to explore the natural resources, eliminate poverty, and improve the environment. A similar project has been carried out in Xinjiang, involving hundreds of thousands of people, and 400,000 people in the karst areas of Guangxi have moved to open up and cultivate barren hills. Millions of people will eventually be moved out of the impoverished areas of western China. The success of these migration projects over the past decade, however, has also brought some social and ecological problems. In order for the projects to have scientific footing and to follow a standard procedure, a theoretical model must be established which fits the conditions in China concerning the mechanism, magnitude, settlement planning, impact evaluation, and management system of migration. To that end, the authors conducted this study based upon empirical research. Sections cover a review of the push-pull mechanism theory in western demographics and the push-pull mechanism theory in China as part of the Help-the-Poor program and its application.