Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:00 UTC At the beginning of December China's Xi Jinping officially declared that China had eliminated poverty entirely, part of his priority program. Western financial pundits have praised the remarkable economic recovery of China following the severe lockdowns a year ago to combat the coronavirus. Predictions that China would once again, as it did in 2008, lead the rest of the world, especially the EU and North America, out of deep recession are common. Yet behind the official Beijing statements there are indications that China's decades of economic boom are coming into deep problems, far deeper than officially acknowledged. If true, the consequences for the rest of the world as well as for China could be severe.