I'm excited about robo-taxis and automated vehicles in general but...
I think somewhere like China had to do it first, for less than ethical reasons.
First is the insurance company model, especially in the West, still hadn't got the situation sorted regarding culpability with incidents with automated cars. Second, China has the kind of control that could strong arm any bad PR off the face of the earth, until robo-taxis become the norm and the bugs are tweaked out of it.
I might be just following the trope of China = bad, but like a few developments in the last decade or so, there's had to be an element of Wild West before things become a bit more established and adhere to protocols etc.
I'm really hoping one day to convince my City of residence, Auckland, to invest heavily in automated vehicles, because we are about 20 years behind schedule infrastructure wise.