This is a country that just a generation ago went through the Mao famines, that murdered 50 to 100 million people through forced starvation. As recently as a few decades ago, they still had traditional gulags, and still have re-education camps. During one stretch a decade ago, they famously were executing people in large numbers in stadiums via firing squad, to rapidly 'solve' outstanding crimes - they still do this to a lesser extent today [1].

Even now, the value of life in western China is considered very low. They have half a billion people living on $2 to $3 per day. I don't think there's a single example of such a poor country that has had a first world style (eg Sweden, Canada or Germany) consideration for the bottom 50%.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/28/china-arrests-terro...