Michael Zhang, an analyst with China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm in Shanghai, is convinced reaching high-income status will be an important milestone for China since it would send a signal it had truly arrived as a nation.

"It is very important to China to be no longer considered a developing country. It has become one of the most powerful countries in the world. All this will have happened in a very short period of time."

Zhang also believes there will be benefits felt around the world from the Chinese becoming richer, with Africans, in particular, receiving greater flows of investment from China.

"I think with the additional taxes people's higher incomes will bring, the Chinese government will focus more on building its good relations with African countries. It would be in a better position to build infrastructure such as railways and maybe some highways with the extra receipts."

In Wuxi, however, where people have four times the earnings of the average Chinese, most citizens still believe they have a long way to go before they achieve a typical Western lifestyle.

Even with a $20,400 per capita GNI, the city lies well behind the US with its $52,340, Germany with $45,070 and the UK with $38,500.

Many in China feel they lack access to adequate healthcare and other social provisions that many in the West take for granted.

Zhang Zhengwei, a 27-year-old manager of befreewheeling, a coffee-shop-cum-art-gallery at National Digital Film Industrial Park, says that people may be better off than ever before but they still have a long way to go.

"So far we are just in the process of catching up with Western society. Some people are a lot better off than before but by no means everyone."

Contact the writers through andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn