The low exchange rate is resulted by the government policy, as an additional push to the low labour cost, to increase the net export. So there is nothing to do with population. Even the labour is cheap, the chinese curreny can be strong. but strong chinese yen would result a less competitive price for the chinese produced goods, and less export could hurt the growing economy.
Average people are making more or less the same amoung of money in term of the absolute number of currency (2k/month, ie), and it costs more or less the same number of currency to fulfill the min living standard, though buy a Tee in Canada may cost more then in China thru the exchange rate(CAD20 vs CNY20). So the geographic difference would matter not much about the price index for common goods. Chinese economy is doing well but not effecient, the high GDP/growth is resulted by waste of resourse, both natural and human.
What I mean by doing worse is that university in China are charging more currency then in Canada. Even some Canadians make a lot of money, most Canadians are making 30k per annum. And the cost of university is 6k per annum (for tuition). However, the Chinese families makes less number of currency than the Canadian, and need to pay more tuition (10k/an.)
personal options, and you are welcome, nice to argue/discuss/talk
