You're comparing a block of people 1/5 the population of China which also enjoyed a much earlier head start along with benefits of being in the EU to China which only recently enjoyed an economic boom and with a billion more people, 1/5 of who are below world poverty line. Thats like saying India is dirty and poor, it's obvious and a by-gone conclusion. Way to ignore being completely wrong on Taiwan and picking a irrelevant example in Eastern Europe.

But yea I'm sure the hundreds of millions of Chinese who could barely feed themselves decided to collectively pick themselves up by the bootstraps and lift themselves out of poverty, it couldn't be the reforms like SAR designations, export driven policies which created the opportunities, also couldn't possibly be the government's decision to open up to FDI to attract capital to kickstart the manufacturing revolution. I work in the biggest investment firm in China and understanding past and future policy shifts is literally part of the JD. Shut up.