I never liked comparing countries in terms of poverty levels or how well a country does based on what one country feels is "up to standard" and all those rankings. When doing a research paper on migrant workers in China, my group realized that many of the workers would be grouped below poverty level. Yet, an important aspect to remember is that the poverty level in one country is not the same elsewhere. We made the mistake of comparing the United State's standard of living to that of China. As it turned out, many of the workers did relatively well and weren't considered "poor" by Chinese standards. A friend I went to school with in China lived in a small apartment with two rooms; one room belonged to the parents and the second to the host sister. My friend lived in what I called the closet or storage room. The apartment would be considered something only a broke college student could afford (it was really small). In China, this apartment was considered high class.
Going back to the Social Progress Index. This analysis does a good job when it comes to ranking a country, because it is based on what the country contributes to the people in three categories: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well being, Opportunity. Taiwan was not part of this Social Progress Index, and I didn't feel like grouping it with China because they are too different in how they run their country and treat their citizens.
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