The point of the article is that objectively the world, as a whole, is getting better, and in some cases improving quite dramatically. Personally, I don't think the survey quoted in the opening paragraph is really that interesting - it's not the least bit surprising that people replied subjectively rather than objectively.
My point about the Chinese experience being more pertinent was regarding these objective measures not how people replied subjectively to a survey question. It's not that the Chinese experience is pertinent to someone in US or France, but that recent Chinese economic development has been more pertinent to whether or not the world has objectively gotten better.
In the future we are also going to see far more reductions in poverty and child mortality in countries like India and China than in the USA, because the USA is so much wealthier. Additionally, if we want to understand how to improve the world in the future, I believe it's more important to look at countries that have recently improved standards of living, like China, rather than countries like the USA that experienced their most significant improvements in standards of living before the 1960s.
Why would the experience of the Chinese be pertinent to people of the US or France, however? I don't think their economic regimes are transferable.