Well,I'm from China. I think the plumber means the living condition is less than UK.
Actually,the rich-poor gap is huge,and this is a tough problem,no matter how the press ' window dress' the economy here.
It seems that someone mentions about human rights above,well,as a Chinese,I think China dose badly in this part,especially the government ban the Facebook,Twitter and Youtube.
So in short,if China can't cope with rich-poor gap issue,you'll hear similar statements for 100 years and the so-called ' superpower' is just nothing.