The 996 work practices do still continue and are just an extreme example of how terrible working conditions are across China. I would much rather work less hours for more money in better conditions that are available in the EU as the bare minimum by law. This goes to the quality of life issue, Europeans have more time off work to spend with family and friends.

The purchasing powers of the Chinese people are increasing year on year (as are European who started at a much higher level but obviously can not increase at the same rate.) but the problem with China is that they are likely as a population to get old before they get rich. China faces demographic collapse over the next 50 years due to the disastrous one child policy. Demographics is destiny.

unless you believe healthcare, education and paid leave are treated the same uniformly. Not every country in the EU is like Sweden or Germany.

Some countries like Sweden offer their citizens extraordinary social benefits so it would be unfair to compare them to most countries. My point is that the EU minimum worker protections are orders of magnitude above anything in China. The EU does a much better job protecting the dignity of its work force than the "people's party" in power in China.