China is not rich but a middle income country. China's GDP per capita is lower than Bulgaria and Romania.

Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?___location...

All that means is that Chinese people, individually and on average, did not be come rich. China, as a country, did become rich.

No, it didn't. Look at the concept of "Middle Income Trap"[0]. It describes China very well.

[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap

I'm very interested to see how this picture will look 20-30 years out. Wealth is concentrated in pockets and the average person gets by. China wealth Gini index is moderating somewhat around Japan tier. US Gini is very high and closer to the world average.

Parts of China did, parts did not. The income inequality is really quite striking for what's notionally a communist worker's paradise.

A few years back I was in Xining, an obscure third-tier provincial capital. The main shopping street could have been Tokyo.or Seoul, full of neon, fancy brands and expensive restaurants. But you walk one single block out and you're in a street market with flies buzzing around sheep heads and slabs of meat hanging off hooks.