chinese workers are overworked by like basically any standard, but unlike their neighbours or the world in general the trend has been positive for a while now. underpaid isn't really true, maybe their wages are lower in absolute terms but honestly cost of living in china was quite low when i was on exchange there, so disposable income tends to be pretty okay for most workers if not ideal. i can't speak on privacy, as that's not really anything that i've ever particularly cared about. my experiences as a japanese person studying in china were surprisingly good actually - a lot gets made of the hostility between the countries, but honestly i was treated pretty friendly, all it took was not being a raging chud. i would be a bit careful about overestimating the general mood in china - your average chinese citizen is about as ideologically committed to communism as an american is to capitalism, if not a bit more from what i found. its nowhere near the general malaise of hopelessness in the west. i found that older generations tended to be more left on economics, with unfortunately often shit social takes.

keep in mind the last time i was deeply immersed in chinese life (not visiting relatives) was like during the mid hu jintao years, and it seems to have improved dramatically and some of my comments on overall mood probably arent as accurate nowadays.