There is a significant difference in a population of 70 million educated workers who need to be maintained for high performance and 400 million low skill workers who are highly replaceable.

I am trying to make no judgement here, just explaining then 'motivational environment'

This math of course is in flux to a degree we haven't seen in maybe 1000+ years though right now.

I think you can it's just shifted by several decades because China took a long dark detour through the Cultural Revolution. QoL exploded in the US in the Post War period, partially imo because we were the only industrialized economy that didn't have significant homeland attacks during WW2 so the US got a straight shot to the top of the heap. China got a similar QoL lift through a similar path, mass manufacturing (this time business taken from the US by being far cheaper) and growth of in country expertise. Now even China is feeling a similar cost squeeze drawing some business to smaller neighbors. They're also just so much larger they can sustain a larger gradient between coasts that look closer to '1st' world costs and poorer interiors where cheaper manufacturing can be done.

> Eh, quality of life has gone to the moon in China in living memory. Not nearly as much a positive delta here in the US.

The Chinese rural population still isn't eligible for local equivalent of social security in their old age (that's only for city folks), and IIRC there was a huge unwillingness to provide financial assistance to individuals during COVID.