I think house prices in china can't really be compared with other country for lots of reasons, eg: they don't own their homes (70y lease), very low interest on loans (1-2%), real estate is seen as a very good investment in china, etc.:)
Also, China lacks very good investments (the stock market is still a joke), so real estate is seen as the only viable option to beat inflation. So even in hot markets like Beijing and Shanghai, lots of nice apartment buildings will have empty units, which are just being held as an asset and are not even renovated to be rented out.
China is not really that unique from other countries, it’s real estate market is quite expected considering the factors that created it.
I believe that "you can't invest abroad unless you have money for a legal counsel" applies to a lot of countries.
Adding to you point on property taxes: Russian provinces with regional property taxes only saw, i think, 1/10th of the bubble in comparison to the rest of the country. At the time when an average private individual could buy 5 flats in 3 years in hopes of bubble growing faster than than interest on his loan, it will be pretty expensive to pay even 0.75% property tax, as it can easily be bigger than guy's annual income.