For the average person on the mainland, though, life is better than it's been for a long time. There's a lot of prosperity, great products to buy, lots of things to see and do, etc. Quality of life is also better than it ever has been in the 20th Century in terms of things like health, public services etc. Couple that with highly controlled access to information, and 'the man on the street' doesn't see a problem at all. Also nationalism is highly encouraged and many people in China are very reactive to any criticism of the state or of anything 'Chinese' and will dismiss any negative information about China out of hand as being simply untrue.
At least that's the impression I get. Of course there are critics, but they have to keep their heads down because it's the kind of place where you can get in big trouble for being vocal.
What you say is true--certainly chimes with what I've seen on my brief visits--but they're sailing into the choppiest of waters with full-sail. I am not an environmental Cassandra by any stretch of the imagination (although let's recall that she was actually right), but when I see the smog in Seoul and note the fact that it is literally so bad in the spring that people stay indoors, and then I note that even the masssaged indices show that multiple cities in China and India are significantly worse for significantly longer periods, I think that they're sitting on a health timebomb (wait for the cancer figures in twenty years).
And it isn't just physical health. We don't read a fraction of the tales emerging from China (language barrier etc.), but there is a clear picture of an increasingly atomised society. Now this is true everywhere in the developed world, but the cultural safety-nets that insulate people from the depredations of hyper-capitalism are more eroded in China than, say, in Japan, Korea and Taiwan (No, I'm not going to pretend that it's part of mainland China). Those horror stories that seep through to us: slaves kept in animal sheds, massacres in childcare centres, drivers 'finishing off' pedestrians they've hit, endemic sexual abuse etc.: when you bear in mind that's the tip of the iceberg, I think (to mix my metaphors) we're getting a glimpse through a crack in the curtains at a society in poor mental shape.
Again, I am quite relaxed about societies that allow successful individuals to accumulate great wealth (a rising tide raising all ships), but in China (and worse India), philanthropy is at abysmal levels and, frankly, the first thing newly minted tycoons do with their wealth is educate their offspring outside of China and relocate their families overseas. Yes, similar things happen elsewhere, but it seems to be the norm in China.
Controversial points, but what are we here for if not to float ideas: the Chinese are (excessively) chauvinistic and nationalistic, most of the wealthy east-Asian populations are, but with the Chinese it seems to be an extension of a semi-solipsistic individualism: the Chinese are a great 'race' (this would be more fairly phrased 'the Han Chinese'); this is because I am one of them and I prefer to think that I am great, so the group I am part of must also be great.
With Japan and Korea (smaller, more homogenous and more geographically limited societies, although historical homogeneity is changing in Korea, to an extent), it's more of a case that they view themselves as a family and view their society is a family of families (this too is breaking down, slowly). Couple this with a myopic historical education that focuses squarely on the local and over-emphasises that local role in the overall tapestry of world history, and you get a similar chauvinism ('behold all we have done!'), but one that is less self-centred. That may not seem like much of a distinction, but one is easier to alter than the other as it doesn't directly challenge the individual's sense of self-worth.
So many of these factors are in play elsewhere, too, but owing to the size of the Chinese population and the rapidity of economic and cultural change, they're going to get the dark underbelly of all that advancement in spades. We can only hope that they gain a concomitant appetite for controlling their own fates and begin to demand real representation and accountability.
Lest readers think this is all too harsh on the place, I will say simply that I could write (and have written) far more negative things about the state (and the State) of modern Britain, but that is not the title above this thread. I also have considerable affection for Hong Kong and Hong Kongers.
