Model village shows cracks in Xi’s fight to end China poverty

LANKAO, China: When President Xi Jinping last came to central China’s Lankao county, it was famous for two things: poverty and the government official who reputedly died trying to end it.

Three years later, the hardscrabble area has undergone a Cinderella-like transformation, waltzing across the national poverty line just in time for the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress on October 18.