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Alright you want the real reason?
Society in East Asia has since ancient times been heavily shaped by agriculture, whereas in the West there was a strong emphasis on hunting. In the agriculture heavy society of the East, a great deal of importance was placed on how people can live together and maintain social harmony. Thus there was a strong hierarchy set up from the state level to the local administrative levels. The most important facet of society was cohesion, peace and harmony. So any issue or fact that might arise that risks to overturn the social harmony would be ignored or quashed.
In the West, there of course was a social hierarchy but the society was built up around how a man can make a name for himself and become successful. Thus individualistic traits are valued because it sets a man apart from his peers according to his unique ability. So over time Western society came to value individual freedoms and the personal pursuit of happiness.
This is the opposite in East Asian society. The goal of everybody was to achieve a collective benefit by making the country strong. So people were always willing to forego personal freedoms for the benefit of the collective. this is also true for Korea and Japan, not just China.
The modern Chinese mentality is formed from this kind of base form. However it has been altered by generations of communism and authoritarianism whereby some aspects are multiplied, such as the submitting to authority. Koreans and Japanese are more willing to protest their government.
Today's Chinese boomers grew up in a time of immense famine and little education (communism), so that they learned to cultivate a 'me first' attitude where they take everything for themselves when they can because 'you never know when the next opportunity will come'. This is the cause of so much of the shoddy quality of Chinese infrastructure and the cause for the prevalence of corruption.
That's mostly it.
Mostly
