75% of China's middle class is in the $2 to $10 per day income bracket. And that's their middle class, the bottom 1/3 are even worse off.
https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/
(Oct 2014)
“Poverty is still a salient problem in China,” Zheng Wenkai, a vice-minister at a government office responsible for poverty alleviation and development, said at a news briefing Tuesday, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. About 200 million Chinese, or 15% of the country’s population, would be considered poor by international poverty measures, set at $1.25 a day, Mr. Zheng added.
https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/15/more-than-82-...
Two simple questions that make the point easily:
What's the median income, in non-purchasing parity terms, for the bottom 50% of people China?
How many people does China have living below $5 per day, in non-purchasing parity terms?
Answer those please.
http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN
Purchasing parity is a good measure for living standards. You can buy a full meal for 10 yuan or $1.5 in rural China. It is not fair to measure their income with no adjustment. Cooking for a family may cost less than that. $1 in rural China is worth much more than $1 in the US.
Your quotes were from 2014. China is improving every year. You can Google for more recent statistics and quote them here if you disagree.
From Google:
"According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms."
In 2017 there are around 600 million people in rural area. Their average monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. Cost of living there is cheap and this is middle income, not poor.