Fair enough. “Underpaid” isn’t an objective measure so it’s hard to argue against, but ths average wage in China in 2024 was 124k yuan. Multiplied by 3.5, the PPP factor for China in the same year and converting to 2024 USD, we get approximately 60k USD equivalents annually. That’s basically the same as France. Now that said there are two caveats here: First this is purchasing power parity, which measures how much money goes domestically; a French wage will go much further when importing foreign goods. Second China has higher inequality than France, and specifically a large rural-urban divide, so the same average is coming from a more equitable distribution in France, meaning most people are making more money than China even in PPP despite the average being the same. Still, it’s clear that the poverty wages China gets derided for are a thing of the past (try doing the same math with 2014 numbers). Chinese factories run on automation now, not cheap labor.