Sorry, I’m going to chime in here and call you out because this is one of the most ignorant comments on this thread.
I was a Canadian visa officer living in China, posted at one of our diplomatic missions for many years. I was personally responsible for hand picking, approving (and refusing) the visas and sending perhaps 20,000+ Chinese students to Canada. Basically the buck stopped with me.
As part of the process (above and beyond my interviewing them and their families) I also went through their personal finances to try to determine the historical and legal accumulation of their personal net worth.
Yes, I approved many well-off students. But the *vast vast** majority* were middle-class. Quite often I would approve, even if it financially stretched the parents after they saved for sometimes decades and put their own retirement at risk. So long as they could scrape together sufficient funds (with parents paying, grandparents forgoing their pensions to become dependant on the parents, and even help from uncles and aunts), I would tend to approve.
But in these cases, the humble desire for the students to make something of themselves, to work their bloody asses off, to make their parents proud and to honor their parents sacrifices (filial piety) and to contribute to society and to give back to their parents later in life became very clear in interviews.
Did some get through, and were there some problematic ones? Yes. When you’re dealing with the tens-of-thousands, some will get through. And they’ll be very visible if they flaunt their $$$. But this isn’t the majority. The problem is they just are more visible than the quiet student who only ventures out of their basement apartment 3 hours a week to get groceries before they scurry back to study at home for 20 hours a week.
Don’t lower yourself to the level of someone who paints a whole ethnic, national or cultural group with one broad stroke. That then becomes border racism (if it doesn’t already cross the line). Especially when you don’t have a bloody clue about what you’re talking about AND when you weren’t the one who was involved behind the scenes (I mean the real behind the scenes... combing deep into their family lives, bank accounts and backgrounds).
(Am signing off and not answering any questions. I don’t usually do this, but your comment really rubbed me the wrong way)