(It says Korean stories but I'm really referring to Korean and Chinese manhwas when I speak about stories. I'm not well versed enough in Chinese and Korean written literature and tv shows to compare their quality. If any of you know better feel free to tell me.)
Manhwas from Korea are generally better than those from China.
Why is this?
Welll first we need to look at the facts. China has a much higher population than Korea and thus has a much larger talent pool. This also means that the total number of people that make art should also be higher.
Population alone suggests that China should have better quality stories on average. As there is more talent meaning more competition which should result in better quality. But that is not the case. Korea has by far more popular and more successful stories than China.
Why are koreans somehow more skilled storytellers than Chinese people?
The answer is simple. On average Koreans are better educated than Chinese people.
Now. How does that have something to do with quality of art?
The answer to that lies within the nature of creativity. See creativity the ability to reorganise information in unique ways. This makes creativity almost limitless because the number of permutations between all the information that people possess is massive.
But how many truly great combinations of information that can create incredible stories are there? Surely there are a gargantuan amount of combinations.
But there are exponentially more high quality combinations with higher level Information. Because more detailed knowledge and understanding better simulates reality. And with the arc formatted storytelling manhwas and books the simulation of reality, life and people is the main goal.
So then if you have a population which as a whole possesses more high level information then the quality of art is likely to be much higher.
That's not to say that people without the necessary education cannot create high quality art. Creativity as a skill is just finding the best combinations of information. And even without an increase in knowledge you can increase your ability to discern between information combinations.
The ability to discern between information combinations can allow for higher level art. But the ability to increase the amount of information you have will also allow for higher level combinations.
it also may be a quicker way to improve than improving your ability to discern which to my understanding can only be improved with experience creating and consuming stories enough until you have comparisons between them.
Regardless. Simply due to the access to higher quality information, Korean art can win in terms of quality.