China has a wide range of prices....if you want expat stuff it will be decently expensive....Chinese stuff is cheaper usually...meaning subway, bus, cheap food....you can easily travel China for 20$ a day staying in a hostel and taking thr subway/bus......but the inflation is bad here and everything is overpriced because people are desperate for cash...i think you should plan on spending more than Thailand if you want to spend a lot of time in big cities.....even Guangzhou,Nanjing, are more expensive...all tourist cities except Hangzhou have good metro though