^Good channel, thanks, the guy has a very good accent, indicative of a full cultural immersion in China. He doesn't come across as a glowie or paid shill, though clearly anti-mainland as most Brits tend to be, is a good writer and has good production values.
The Philippines were one of the richest countries in Asia at one point in the 20th century, so I wouldn't take that for granted. Had China gone liberal, things might have gotten much worse for the average Chinese instead of improving.
That experience of his was from 2004, 21 years ago. If you go another 21 years from then, China was on par with or worse than the Philippines, which were richer than China in the 80s but started tanking under Marcos.
That guy above did a good video about China then and now, vs Britain:
Stop capping for once, the Changs were quite literally catapulted into a semi-competitive status on global stage by foreign interests. This has everything to do with Kissinger's barely covered up Judeo-Chang plot to ship off the world's manufacturing base to China + hand over 250 years of Western technological innovation and advancement to the Chinese commies for free, and has hardly anything to do with supposed good governance from the pot bellied and hair dyed Politburo CCP dinos.
The industrial level espionage continues to this day bytheway, and if one'd type in 'China spying' in any search engine bar Baidu I'd get dozens of hits from the last 12 months alone. Meanwhile fellow travellers still out there trying to throw up dust and cheering on the CCP for pulling off a supposed Wirtschaftswunder 2.0, as if the abovementioned never happened. The BS is getting tiring as hell.