Most of the chinese F/O's I flew with couldn't speak Mandarin but only spoke Cantonese, so they weren't much use from the linguistic point of view. The recruitment of chinese cadets only is clearly a race thing. It is strange that in the rest of the world there is movement towards racial equality, but not in China. If you want a Hong Kong permanent I.D. card you must be of chinese race. So racial inequality is even official there.