I'm not going to say that the assumption that Wuhan is different from reality is racist, it's definitely ignorant but let's face it, most people in the world had never heard of Wuhan last December, I can't blame them for not knowing what it's like. There definitely are parts of China which are very poor. And there are province capitals which are definitely lower level than a Western city (I'm pretty sure than anyone who has been to Zhengzhou immediately thought of it when they read that!). Wuhan isn't one of those cities but it is pretty close to ones which a much closer to that image.
I do think that the perception that the Chinese MUST have lied about the numbers since the numbers in the US, Italy, etc are so high is racist though. Yes, China has reported fewer cases than Italy or the US. Yes, it's possible that they did lie. But I take exception to the claim that they MUST have lied. China locked down the city of Wuhan when it had 500 cases and the lockdown of the entire country started when there were only 2000. And anyone should see that shutting down the country that hard while the number of cases were still that low should be expected to stop transmissions of the virus. And China STILL had a 40-fold increase in the number of cases after that lockdown.
Then we look at the West. Lockdowns were almost always at much higher levels of infection than in China (if they ever happened). And lockdowns were also less severe than in China where they had measures like only allowing one person from your household to leave to go shopping every other day. Yet China must have lied. Yeah, that's absolutely racist.
I know it's anecdotal evidence, but I've lived in China for 11 years and I don't know anyone, who knows anyone, who had the virus. When I was in Lijiang, the number #1 tourist destination in China they shut down the entire old town on Chinese New Year when they had two cases! I don't think the confirmed cases ever reached double digits. And you know what, I do believe that, I have enough connections in that town to have heard on the grapevine if it was much more.