It's not surprising for the reasons you stated. People from Western countries find living in China undesirable, hence they need to be paid a lot to go there and work.
That’s certainly true for people that are relocated to China from overseas. That was my case. But local Chinese citizens working at one of the BAT companies can also be very highly paid at the more senior levels (say L7 and up). My 200k USD reference was for local comp, not imported expat comp.
