Wages are small in China because cost of life is small. You can find a bowl of noodles for $2 or less in most of China, 90+% of people own their housing so don’t have to pay rent, and utilities are heavily subsidized. I spent 2 weeks visiting China a bit over a year ago and I saw fewer homeless people in the whole trip than I saw between the airport and the hotel in my only US visit (work related)