People don't realize how primitive parts of China are.
Saw a program once; rural Chinese family had a hose hovering a few inches above their pig pen, (right outside their kitchen window. Yum.) that was positioned to enter the kitchen window, then under the stove burner. They used this to power the burner with methane, for cooking. It was on pbs, so, of course, there were no value judgements made, such as, “How can you people live in this filth and stench???” All presented as normal and proper. But then, like I said, I’m a xenophobe.
I wonder where the deaths are most concentrated vs the survivors. China has such an air pollution problem in and near their cities that many with preexisting lung damage due to pollution may be more susceptible to mortality than others who get the disease.
While that is true, there are and have always been people so stuck in fairy tale fantasies about ancient China that they refused to admit that China already had fully automated factories by the mid nineties, sometimes situated amongst the traditional sweatshops. Even when our engineers made trips over there and brought back production samples.