Just a minor nit on the provinces, you excluded Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai which have province level status and almost 60 million in population combined, close to Thailand's 70 million, and a weighted average HDI of 0.87.
Heterogeneity is and perhaps will always be a thing for China, and part of the question is if the poor parts have any low hanging fruit left to mimic the success of the earlier-developed and now high HDI areas, or have those fruit withered by now.
Heterogeneity is and perhaps will always be a thing for China, and part of the question is if the poor parts have any low hanging fruit left to mimic the success of the earlier-developed and now high HDI areas, or have those fruit withered by now.