So if you look at global poverty over the last (say) 40 years or so, there's been a downward trend. Take China out, no downward trend. The World Bank likes to crow about how their policies have lead to the lowest levels of poverty in history, but if you look at places like sub Saharan Africa and Latin America where the World Bank and the IMF have been most active, poverty has been stagnant at best and actively increasing at worst - something the UN has remarked upon repeatedly.

So what gives? If China is just like any other capitalistic country, why is poverty going down there so much faster than anywhere else? Is the fact that China has been so apparently successful at reducing poverty and food insecurity an endorsement of authoritarianism?