Jeju.

His orange business has blossomed over the past few years so much that he can now afford a brick house, a sign of world in Beijing, a rural county in central China, he says.

All of this was made possible by government assistance.

Village officials and the government were very helpful in poverty alleviation.

They helped develop the orchards.

Orchard is our main source of income here, and they supported it well.

I can earn up to €5000 a year.

Right now, me is the shining example of China's go to eradicate extreme poverty.

By 2021 in 2014, President Xi Jinping announced relief strategies to aid the poor.

Government officials went door to door to assess household income and provided aid.

Now Beijing says it's achieved its target.

Almost 100 million rural, impoverished population have been lifted out of poverty.

We finished the hazardous task of eradicating absolute poverty, creating another incredible miracle.

We But some critics say she's official version is in the full story.

They say his government said the poverty threshold too low.

Here in Beijing, some farmers who have officially escaped poverty still struggled Liu Qingyuan says his harvest has not improved despite government aid to diversify his crops.

I have two sons who go outside to work for others.

When they're free, they can earn some money to sustain our living.

I'm nearly 70 and my wife is over 60.

We cannot work like this.

Are living, is in such a poor shape.

Okay, Leo and his family of five wished to move to a better home.

Like others they know.

But for now they have to stay in this wooden house, which does little to keep them warm.

The 67 year old still hopes that one day his farm will bring them the world he has long wished for.

Joining us is John Donaldson of Singapore Management University.

John.

When Beijing says it has eradicated poverty, what does that mean?

And is it an accurate statement?

Well, there were two important words that Xi Jinping said when when he when he made that the announcement recently declaring victory one was, uh, rural.

So it has nothing to do with urban poverty, and the other one was absolute poverty.

So what they're claiming is that, uh, you know, in terms of a relatively low poverty line that that is what the entire population is under.

Now is it true?

I don't know any serious scholar who thinks that China has, even in terms of absolute rural poverty, has eradicated poverty?

Uh, has China made a humongous leap forward?

Hasn't made a contribution that is very, very likely to be true.

And so what more does the country need to do in its fight against you?

Mentioned Rule versus Urban?

I don't know if you want to focus on one over the other.

And, of course, the growing inequality divide there, and those are three very, very important issues.

All three of them are very difficult to tackle, and you have to tackle them differently.

In terms of rural poverty, China should not be letting their foot off the gas.

The fear is that by declaring victory over poverty, people, including many Chinese people, will think, Oh, that means that we've we've eliminated poverty when what they really have done is, if their claims are true, eliminated the most severe point of forms of poverty.

They there are still poor people in rural China today, and so they need to keep their foot on the pedal.

Urban poverty is very different because you're talking about layoffs and other kinds of things that thrust working, working people into poverty, standards of living and so very, very different kinds of tools that you would need to attack.

Uh, urban poverty as opposed to rural.

And of course, they are linked because meant much of the urban poverty are folks who are coming in from the countryside looking for work and other things like that.

And so, by reducing rural poverty some ways, what you're doing is shifting it from the rural areas into the cities.

Now we've danced around this a little bit.

But how much of this is driven by propaganda?

The need to sort of spread certain messages?

Well, I take it on two different levels.

I do think She Jinping is taking poverty seriously.

I think she Jinping really should be applauded for taking poverty Seriously.

Nobody is suggesting that this is pure propaganda in the sense that they're just cooking the books down in in, uh, local China in rural China, when I have a chance to visit, uh, you know, which I do basically every year that there's not a pandemic around.

I can see that local government officials are taking it very seriously.

On the other side, Xi Jinping had to bring it down to zero.

As soon as he made the pledge in 2015, we knew that they were going to announce success.

And just to put this in context, how are other countries in the region doing compared to China based on metrics, you go by?

Well, the truth is, every country struggles with, uh, you know, struggles with poverty, you know, from Singapore to, uh, you know, to Germany, to America.

And so poverty is something that you know, really, humanity cannot let.

It's, uh it's, you know, it cannot stop paying attention to.

We will always have to be dealing with poverty, at least for the for the foreseeable future.

Uh, in terms of countries nearby countries like Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam, Uh, you know, all are struggling, uh, with poverty.

Uh, fortunately, the worldwide poverty rate is going down, but much of that is actually generated by China.

John Donaldson.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.