The Chinese are getting richer. You can see that in this chart from The Economist:
Charts like this are very common. But an economics student ought to recognize a problem immediately: for a firm, that orange line is a cost. The firm only benefits if productivity has gone up just as fast.
The source provided no information on this. The message for a student then is to stop, stall, and look for other information. Do not "jump at the bait" of looking at only one side of the issue.
BTW: Yeah, I spent many seconds looking for that information myself. The article in The Economist didn't have it (so they were doing the same dumb thing I just warned you about). And I could not find it at Haver Analytics either; but that doesn't mean that much since they are a consulting service academics and student can't afford to pay for, and they keep most stuff under lock and key.
