They have no points at all and you must have missed English 101.
First sentence:
"THE past four years have seen the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and the biggest food-price increases since the 1970s. That must surely have swollen the ranks of the poor."
I'd expect them to at least address the point they are trying to make but nothing in the article supports it. The source of the article (the data) ends in 2008 so that's way too short to make any conclusion on the impact of the economic downturn.
Economies have some level of inertia and I'd say that it's inversely proportional to the said economy's dynamism.
They admit it themselves:
"This implies that the long-term rate of poverty reduction—slightly over one percentage point a year—continued unabated in 2008-10, despite the dual crisis."
Same for 2011, I'd say poor countries have seen very little investment coming from Europe in late 2011 as most economic resources were shed in the debt crisis and protection plan.
"A lot of the credit goes to China"
Absolutely true. Outside China, I have personally witnessed huge changes happening thanks to China and its economic power and fearless investments. They literally blow in Laos' economies and are largely responsible for Myanmar current boom, spending money where their mouth is.
In the end, the article does a great job at showing one of China's good side but they certainly aren't proving their initial claim.
For people with short memories, China is doing what Europe and the North America was doing during the post-WWII era. I bet they are going to make the same mistakes and it's already common knowledge they have started (they bribe foreign officials easily and generously).