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It's apples and oranges. First, "middle class" in the way that Americans would understand it is ridiculously infinitesimal proportion of the overall population. Not based on income parity, but on the trappings of a middle class lifestyle. By almost all standards the vast, vast majority of Chinese, even city dwellers in "tier 1" cities, are still living in poverty.
Second, there's almost certainly less random street crime in China, but that's because the local/provincial/national government has a monopoly on crime. It's like living in cartel-controlled territory, you're not gonna get mugged by a freelancer, but if a cartel member wants your car or your wife or whatever, you're fucked. Which leads to my next point...
I don't know, but maybe! A lot of people report crimes in the U.S. because there's string faith in the police and justice system (well, until recently perhaps). To extend the above metaphor, who are you going to call when you get your ass kicked by a cartel member? The police? lol! So the crime that was committed against you never officially happened and it doesn't end up in the stats, along with the vast majority of crimes. Look at our low crime rate! Obviously the metaphor doesn't work completely because cartels do have to vie against the police and federal govt for power, but in a place where the government is essentially just one large corrupt mafia, there's no such need. And we haven't even gotten into how Goodhart's Law affects crime statistics if your party boss has tasked you with reducing X crime by Y percent, it's an open secret that official stats are often tweaked or fabricated.
This is IMO analogous to my example above in that the city government and police force were in cahoots to cover this up for two decades. Only imagine that there are no independent journalists or disinterested higher levels of government to blow the lid off the systematic abuse, and in fact you're liable to end up imprisoned or dead if you dare try to expose thr powerful people behind the coverup.
The Chinese government has a tremendous amount of control over the online narrative and complete control over traditional media. You and your neighborhors might notice that there are more killings of robberies, but if state finds that fact embarrassing, good luck getting the news out. I'll concede that in the tier 1 cities (esp Shanghai and Beijing) they are much more likely to actually keep the streets safe, but for the other 99.9% of China where there are fewer foreigners and the population is less Westernized/internet savvy, almost anything could be going on.
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