根据人均收入和GDP，中国人的生活水平是和墨西哥人、马来西亚人相当，为何中国人总是把自己与日韩作比较

The Chinese standard of living is compatible with Mexcans and Malaysians, based on the income and GDP per capita. Why do the Chinese always compare themselves with Japanese and South Koreans?

根据人均收入和GDP，中国人的生活水平只能和墨西哥人、马来西亚人相当。为什么中国人总是把自己与日本人和韩国人作比较？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

JenHo

Since when the Chinese Nationals compare themselves to others? Even though if that is the case, we all compare ourselves to people we admire so as to improve our lots , isn't it? Do you know the Chinese Nationals love to visit Korea and Japan? Bet you don't.

中国人什么时候拿自己和别人比了？就算要比，我们也是拿自己和钦佩的人比，我们只想改善中国人民的生活，不是吗？你知道中国人很喜欢去韩国和日本吗？我猜你就不知道。

The income of a country is relative to the cost of living in that country, most of the time. Let me explain: example, take Japan, you need 200Chinese yuan to buy your bowl of noodles but, in China you only need 16 yuan. And rent in suburban China is cheaper than Japan, a condo of 3 bedder rents 1000 yuan a month, you cannot get this type of rent in Japan unless you stay in a capsule.

多数情况下，一个国家的收入与生活成本有关。我可以解释给你听：以日本为例，吃一碗面条得花200元人民币，但在中国只需要花16元。中国郊区的房租比日本便宜，一套3室的公寓每月租金只需1000元，在日本除非住在胶囊公寓，否则以这个租金是租不到房子的。

John Wong

I’m not sure if that’s the case. If we use PPP (purchase price parity) in the true sense. i.e. not even statistically (because that involve some average figures rather than item by item) they do not live so poorly as compared with their US counterparts, so why they need to compare themselves with Japanese and South Koreans.

我不确定这个说法是否属实。如果我们使用真正意义上的购买力平价(PPP)来对比，中国人的生活甚至好过美国人，那么他们为何还要和日本人和韩国人比呢？

They don’t need to compare themselves with say Malaysians because the middle class Chinese might live better than their counterpart in Malaysia. (For example, they might drive better cars if they’re in 1st tier cities, if they are not, then they truly do not need to drive the good cars as they do not need to “keep up with the Jones”.) One problem people have is to use the average China-wide PPP rather than region by region.

他们也不需要和马来西亚人比较，中国的中产阶级可能比马来西亚的中产阶级生活得更好。(例如，如果他们在一线城市，就可能开好车，如果他们不在一线城市，那么就不需要开好车了，不用跟别人攀比)。中国人使用的是全国平均购买力平价，不是按地区单独计算。

Joseph Loh

Gross domestic product, or GDP, measures the total output of the economy, including activity, stability, and growth of goods and services; as such, it's seen as a proxy for the economy. The standard of living is derived from per capita GDP, determined by dividing GDP by the number of people living in the country. The whole world is watching China’s gdp , China never compared their gdp with others, but would work on sustainable development, poverty eradication, raising the living standards of the rural population, improving accessibility of rural communities, improving transportation infrastructure and systems, promoting a harmonious society, they are governed with co unist ideology, I am more concerned about how my government works to protect our interests and sustain our livelihood

人们用GDP衡量经济的总产出，包括经济活动、稳定性以及商品和服务的增长；所以GDP被视为经济的风向标。而生活水平的高低看的是人均国内生产总值，是用GDP总值除以该国总人口数量计算的。全世界都在关注中国的GDP，但中国从未跟其他国家攀比GDP，中国一心致力于可持续发展，消除贫困，提高农村人口的生活水平，改善农村社区的交通，改善交通基础设施和系统，促进和谐社会，我更关心的是政府会如何保护我们的利益、维持我们的生计。

Calvin L

When will the Chinese's standard of living catch up with Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese?

中国大陆人民的生活水平什么时候能赶上日本、韩国和中国台湾？

If you mean average standard of living then this will take a long, long time. China has a population of 1.4B and it was dirt poor only a few decades ago.

But if you look at the major cities, Shanghai, Beiing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and even some of the secondary cities the standards of living are pretty much on par with those in Japan, S Korea, or Taiwan.

如果你指的是平均生活水平，那么中国需要很长很长的时间才能赶上日本和韩国。中国有14亿人口，几十年前还非常贫穷。

但如果你看看主要城市，上海、北京、广州、深圳，甚至一些二线城市，当地人民的生活水平可不比日本、韩国和中国台湾差。

Bill Chen

China's GDP per capita is the same as that of Malaysia. Why do people assume it is rich?

中国的人均GDP与马来西亚相当。为什么人们认为中国很富有？

The better to sell the China threat narrative.

Or China rising to destroy de ocracy and your way of life.

Or China rapidly militarizing to threaten its neighbors with land grabs and annexation.

It is a no brainer.

China is rich?

这是为了更好地鼓吹中国威胁论。

或者中国崛起会摧毁你们的生活方式。

或者中国高速军事化，会掠夺和吞并土地、威胁邻国。

中国富有吗？这是显而易见的问题。

This is the oecd on education in 2020. China is at the absolute bottom for outcomes.

That is the reality.

这是经合组织对2020年教育的预测。中国在评比结果上绝对垫底。

这就是现实。

Peter Elliott

How come China's GDP per capita is much lower than South Korea and Japan even though many Chinese have similar living standards to those two nations?

为什么中国的人均GDP远低于韩国和日本，但很多中国人的生活水平不输这两个国家？

This just popped into my head so it’s a bit raw (I’m having one of my stream of consciouness episodes lol) China has multiple economies. You’ve got first tier China where it’s wealthy, Tier 3 where I lived (Dalian) which is affordable but you still got to be about as well off as your average South Korean - new BMW every few years sort of thing and then you have a vast sub economy made up of all the small cities, and parts of a lot of the high tier cities.

我也是临时思考这个问题，所以回答得有点粗糙。中国有很多经济形态。中国有富裕的一线城市，也有三线城市(比如我所在的大连)，虽然生活成本较低，但生活水平绝对不输普通韩国人——比如每隔几年就能换一辆新宝马等等；中国还有众多小城市以及部分发达城市组成的庞大的次级经济体。

Chongqing. Nice and cheap to live and too easy to have a nice life on about 2000RMB or even 1000 I guess. Some kind person who knows something about it can enlightem me maybe. Then you’ve got the low economy villages where you basically have a cash or barter economy, a plot of land and hang out with your mates all the time. I mean it’s the same in most countries but in China all these economies are pretty vibrant and well loved by their inhabitants.

比如重庆。生活又舒适又便宜，只需2000元甚至1000元就能享受不错的生活，欢迎高人指点一二。还有经济不发达的乡村，经济基本上还是靠现金交易或物物交换，有一块土地，和朋友天天在一起。我的意思是，大多数国家都是一样的，但在中国，这些经济体都充满活力，深受居民的喜爱。

Anyway, China’s GDP bangs all of these economies into one big one and given that most Chinese people live in small towns and villages that sort of skews the data.

中国的GDP把所有次级经济体合并为一个大经济体，而因为大多数中国人生活在小城镇和村庄，这多少有点让数据失真了。

I don’t think there’s a lot of energy from china to uplift them because they’re probably fine where they are and CPC isn’t in the business of trying to show off to the world with a high GDP anyway. I say that because when I lived in Dalian in 2010 you could get by on 2000RMB a month but now it’s more like 8000. With living standards come a pretty wild increase in the cost of living. I liked the old Dalian quite a lot more with all its cheap street food and messy back allies. All gone now of course.

我认为中国没有足够的精力来提高民众的生活水平，因为他们在当地也过得很不错，而且中国也没有用GDP水平向全世界炫耀的兴趣。我之所以这么说，是因为我2010年曾在大连住过，当时一个月只需要2000元，但现在差不多需要8000元。随着生活水平的提高，人们的生活费用也大幅上涨。我更喜欢以前的大连，有便宜的街头小吃和嘈乱的后街，现在都消失不见了。

What I’m trying to say is that China is full of people living happily.

我想说的是，中国到处都是享受幸福生活的人。

Chen Chun-You CY Tan

As of 2023, do the Chinese still believe that the living standard of China is better than South Korea and Japan as the North Koreans believe the living standards of North Korea are better than China?

2023年，中国人是否还认为中国的生活水平高过韩国和日本，就像朝鲜人认为朝鲜的生活水平比中国好一样？

I’m Singaporean.

Visited many places, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan etc.

And yes, in some ways the infrastructure I’ve seen in ShenZhen is still at the top right now. Although I think Tokyo and Taipei are really very excellent places.

X iamen’s standard seems like on par with Singapore. (Also very modern) and yet iamen is considered a Tier 3 city.

我是新加坡人。

我去过中国香港、中国台湾、马来西亚、日本等很多地方。

是的，在某些方面，我在深圳看到当地的基建水平一直处于领先地位。虽然我觉得东京和台北也都是非常棒的地方。

厦门的生活水平基本与新加坡相当，也很现代，但厦门只是个三线城市。

I don’t need to type more because some people already made video about China, you can see the infrastructures for yourself, their MRT train station alone do not lose Singapore’s, which I think is already quite world class. (Actually our Singapore’s MRT still lose them by a bit, our MRT trains are bought from them, and I remember seeing something out of future, their commercial advertisement is on LED screens outside the train that can follow the train at the train’s moving speed.)

我不需要多费笔墨，因为有些人已经制作了中国的系列视频，你自己就能看到中国的基础设施，中国的地铁车站也不输新加坡，我以前还觉得新加坡的地铁站已经是世界一流水平了。(实际上我们新加坡的地铁还是多少落后他们了，我们的地铁列车还是从中国进口的呢，我记得我还看到了一些很超前的东西，比如把商业广告投到地铁列车外的LED屏幕上，可以跟随列车移动)。

Their MRT station looks like our Changi Airport’s terminal 2 + 3 combined minimum and it’s only a train station not their airport.

As for Malaysia, still lots of areas to be improved but I liked their custom areas and some places, spacious etc. Mainland China seems to be combination of the vast space of Malaysia infrastuctures combined with Singapore’s infrastructure quality etc.

他们的地铁站外观类似我们樟宜机场的2 + 3航站楼，但实际上这只是地铁车站，不是机场。

至于马来西亚，还有很多地方需要改进，但我喜欢他们的关税豁免区和其他一些地方，非常开阔。中国大陆似乎综合了马来西亚基础设施的开阔空间和新加坡的基础设施的优秀品质等因素。

Aside from the “boring infrastructures”, let me also post another video about the fashion trends happening in Mainland China.

除了“无聊的基础设施”，我再发一个关于中国大陆流行趋势的视频。