People may be dissatisfied with the government in the west, but the context is different. People in China have fresh memories of shortage and hardship. My wife is 26 years old and remembers a childhood where meat could only be bought once a week. The people do not want to loose the prosperity of the last ten years.
Again, not much different than here. Meat prices have skyrocketed in Canada, as have produce prices, and the prices of everything else. We're in a recession. There's hardly any employment opportunity for recent grads. Almost all my family has gone to the US. On the plus side, my 1.5 hour commute (each way) is now 25 minutes.
Yes, a country that started further behind in development is objectively 'worse' than a developed country.
But China today is objectively better than 20 years ago and will likely continue development. Meanwhile western countries aren't a panacea.
My wife comes from a 3rd world country where people immigrate to China from. A country that constantly sees its population decline from the exodus, where you can drive through entire abandoned neighborhoods. A country that's behind China on basically every metric you can think of, and where the only development that happens is paid for by China, who constantly forgives their debts. There's always going to be someone that's better off, and worse off than you.
The point isn't to shit on anyone or say China's great, but only to say that different countries have different levels of development, and the 'grass is always greener' mentality leads nowhere good. In 2000 everyone said China wouldn't continue its growth for various reasons, but it did. Today we're saying the same thing, with no recollection of past failed predictions of doom.
China is too big, too educated and too dynamic to stop developing. Yes quality of life isn't that of Canada or the US, but that doesn't mean they're not on a good path.
Just because X country is poorer today than Y country doesn't make X a shitty place.
