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This photo taken on September 28, 2017 shows a statue of Jiao Yulu, an official who became a national hero after famously working himself to death helping farmers eke out a living along the Yellow Rivers flood plains five decades ago, near apartment buildings in Lankao in China's central Henan province. 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 national congress on October 18. / AFP PHOTO / Greg Baker / TO GO WITH China-politics-poverty, FOCUS by Ben DOOLEY (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

This photo taken on September 28, 2017 shows a statue of Jiao Yulu, an official who became a national hero after famously working himself to death helping farmers eke out a living along the Yellow Rivers flood plains five decades ago, near apartment buildings in Lankao in China's central Henan province. 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 national congress on October 18. / AFP PHOTO / Greg Baker / TO GO WITH China-politics-poverty, FOCUS by Ben DOOLEY (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)
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