No doubt the private sector offers good opportunities for locals and the salaries increase fast ,I saw recently the average numbers for Shenzhen university new graduates in 2016, their income was 20% higher than it was in 2014, and several sections had over 98% of the students already working in 2016 while the graduation is in October of the same year, which is bewildering considering some local kids who have neither interest nor need in working ( it's tough to fill empty posts for small/non glamour companies in SZ).
Also I know some expats working for multinationals who are replaced by locals on a higher salary (but without the expat perks), and plenty of local executives obviously make a very good living even by western standards.
Yet not so sure when it comes to government jobs, even for scientists. I remember an article during the recent stock market rout and the numerous government interventions in the market, talking about how the chinese government had reached succesfully to chinese nationals who moved to the West to work as finance executives for them to come back to the Mainland and help the Securities regulators, and not only did they receive a salary which was much lower than what they'd gotten used to, but the journalist argued they had been allowed little influence on the process.
Besides this article, it seems the government salaries are indeed quite low in China.
