[PavlovsCat]

Sure, but there is still a difference between, say, "as someone living in a certain section of a highly competitive environment", and "as a Chinese", since the latter could at least be read to imply that it's a genetic trait, which would be obviously silly. Of course it can also be a shorthand for the more verbose way to put it, but I suspect people here are talking more about descent than the society they are most tightly integrated into.