People forget that high levels of income tax in the western world is actually a fairly new thing.
Denmark for example introduces income tax withheld by the employer in 1970 (kildeskat).
Before that the situation looked much more like China today. And the size of the Danish public sector was much smaller.
It did not introduce the concept nor change the size of income tax, which some might interpret the comment as stating.
The income tax history is really short. Even in US, the income tax was not significant until recent 50-70years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal,_State,_and_Local...
The China economy is behind US probably 20-30 years. Its GDP is large because its population is huge.
Why the Economist publishes this kind of low-level article?
This is actually pretty old and much earlier in development than what China is at right now.