I think when it started there, wages were same or lower but then increased rapidly.
It's not just about wage alone,other wise there were hundreds of other better options in terms of wage.
Why was it in china in first place when it is more suitable for south asian countries ?
Many people say it's because of "cheap labour" but that's far from the truth. There is and was plenty of cheap labour in other Asian and African countries, even in eastern Europe for that matter.
Though factors like cheaper labour(compared to west), allocation of economic zones and yuan devaluation did helped .
Many people don't understand that, even though once china was rendered very poor in post western colonial era,China has been a civilization that was at the zenith of technology, innovation and civil society till 17th century.
The chinese had already formulated the way of a productive civil society .
In 20th century ,China didn't had to go through the arduous task of climbing from a relatively primitive society to a civil and orderly standard of living,which was the case with most parts of the world.
So,china may have been rendered poor but the society as a whole could operate better and more efficiently than even modern European nations.
CCP provided some incentive,but it's the competence of the chinese that yielded such results,for otherwise all gov provides incentives for economic growth but to no avail.
The biggest asset of East Asia is the human resources(highest IQ) and the culture.
The chinese are industrious people,very orderly,disciplined, hardworking and goal-oriented ,don't complain for long hours as long as they get paid for it.
A far cry from the inefficient, disorderly and woeful work culture of INDIA.
Even when China was relatively poor in 80s ,the society was centralized ,orderly and regimented, there was stability and the business culture that drives economic growth;the ideal settings for investors,sadly India haven't even reached that stage yet.
As of right now,for alternative to china, countries like Vietnam,Indonesia,Philippines are preferred choice for export based manufacturing rather than India.
Investors invested in Chinese not just china ,that's the actual reason that people don't get and talk about replacing china.
The developed nations knew the potential of east asians,their work ethic,competence and how they could get work done .