Your question got me interested, so I did some digging in case no one else has anything to add. I wanted to look into China too, but I'm at work and ran out of time. :(
This paper is pretty neat. It's a compiled list of prices from various sources, mostly in England. It places wages in the 15th century for most normal occupations and lower-ranking soldiers at only a few pence a day. Cheap swords and basic tools like axes and spades, running around three to six pence, would then take a couple days' wages to acquire -- but it might be tough to save up for that, given the cost of feeding your family at one to three pence per person per day. A suit of squire's armor costing 5 pounds (1200 pence) would basically be unobtainable.
Nonetheless, as early as the eleventh century, fighting men of the middle class were required to own some metal (typically at least a helmet and weapon). Any freeman in a trade or with a farm would definitely need tools as well, and based on those prices, I wouldn't think it unimaginable for them to have decent collections inherited and/or built up over the years. Serfs working under a lord may not need to personally own as much, depending on the details of his service -- the lord would typically provide weapons if they were called, and potentially tools if the serf's primary duties were his lord's fields.
I don't have an answer to this per se, however in 1500 China and the more advanced parts of Europe were pretty similar in terms of GDP Per Capita. The income of a typical peasant would be similar in both countries. However, starting midway through the 16th century, you started seeing a divergence between the UK and the Netherlands and China. Agriculture progressed along the same path in northwest europe and China, but manufacturing, including that of metals, grew a lot faster in the more advanced parts of Europe since then.
By the 1700s metals were rare in ordinary Chinese life. For example, advanced silk spinning machines in the early 19th century were made out of wood because iron and copper were so expensive. If I had to make a guess, 600 years ago and 400 years there would have been little difference in the odds of being hungry. But while there would have been little difference 600 years ago in terms of iron and copper use, the European (at least in the UK and Netherlands) peasant would have had more iron and copper 400 years ago.