I lived in China for some years and witnessed the dynamic you're describing. "It's better to be the head of a chicken..." Chinese people are extremely entrepreneurial and focused, in some sense, on what works.

The seeming lack of regulation around transportation and business in China is amazing compared to the United States. Of course, there's the part where a Chinese swat team tried to arrest me presumably for using the wrong book in a class I taught, and the rule of whim as the political winds can shift quickly.

But each country has their trade offs, and there are certainly far worse and more expensive places to live than China. Like certain parts of California.