The future will always amaze us, because it will twist and turn in ways we haven't thought of.
But creativity exists without the conditions you specify for its genesis. It always has. people have created music, art, dance, drama, new ways of doing things, new uses for old things, new businesses, etc without those conditions in place. Each village I have been to in China has musicians, story tellers, creative processes in both the arts and daily life. Many of these villages still don't have reliable electricity, running water, affordable medical care, schooling.
What they may not have had is widespread coverage of their creations. I think what we look at now as creativity and call different is the ability to broadcast these creative endeavours and recognise them more widely. Music now written in Australia can be heard in the UK, businesses originating in the US spread across the world. I'm not sure that this makes us any more creative in total, but certainly more creations are known.
I know nothing about the people in Eastern Europe, so have no basis for comparison there, but if we are discussing poverty in general, I do not think that the Chinese people have any more personal dignity than any other nationality. There are those who will carry themselves with dignity and those who will be bottom feeders in any society.
Since March this year, Chinese authorities have become MORE authoritarian, more repressive. And given the control of the media they have been able to do the same as the US media - maintain/heighten a state of fear in the majority of the people. Therefore the majority of people in China have little compunction in permitting the gov't to do this. There are few Han people protesting the crack-down on T'an or those other scary people to the north west.
This week my Oral English classes are discussing "It is more important to be a) a world citizen or b) a Chinese citizen first." It will be really interesting to see what they come up with. I have some minority students in the classes so ...