Commenting on the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s challenges in eradicating poverty, SMU Associate Professor of Political Science John Donaldson, who has researched poverty in China extensively, said the anti-poverty campaign makes some incorrect assumptions. For one, it assumes that poverty is a chronic problem, instead of an acute condition where households move in and out of poverty, depending on factors such as changing weather patterns, births and deaths. “The nature of the problem is that poverty is never fully defeated,” he said.