@boris The cost of this "progress", both human cost and the cost to the environment, in China and elsewhere is yet to be paid. Inequality in China is similar to the US and Brazil. Germany was destroyed after WW2, it's population decimated, yet by 1970s it had already surpassed the US in terms of prosperity and the quality of life. In terms of quality of life, in ones, GDP, freedoms, almost all European countries are decades of not centuries ahead of primitive economies and cultures like China or the US that are based on exploitation of human capital.