Pay is based on experiece and liscences. I don't remember the exact scheme but it works out to something like $1,700 USD per month for a guy who still has the ink wet on their certificate. I can tell you for sure that someone with multi-instructor and instrument instructor certificates and 100 hours of dual given gets $2000 a month. It's allstandard package stuff so they don't leave room to negotiate.
They will withold $100 per month for the first ten months but you do get that back (they reimburse your trip expenses on arrival so the witholding protects them from eating that if you skip out before doing any work). Still, if you really don't like it you could jump ship when you recieve your first payday and go home breaking even with a month in China under your belt.
They have a lot a scary language in the contract about having to give 3 months notice or they fine you some rediculous amount for contract breach. The Chinese still haven't figured out that if they removed that crap then people who do quit would give notice instead of just dissappearing on payday. If you have to leave early then that's how you do it (all of us knows who's going when so we don't leave each other hanging or the students in a bind but as far as the Chinese are concerned it's always a total surprise
)
No taxes to pay here and you probably won't pay any back home either (at leat for Americans it's 330 days abroad in a year and you have no tax liability for money made outside the US).
Pay is totally divorced from how much you fly or what those hours are in but the odds of getting in anything other than a DA40 for the first contract seem slim. Then on the other hand there is a huge controversy here at the moment over a bunch of really low time people that got typed in a CJ1 but I'm not gonna touch that, no my business or my problem.
I'm doing my level best to keep a positive outlook here but again I'd admonish you to come here for travel or experience only. Flying is not what Pan Am does and the Chinese have zero interest in quality instruction in the air or on the ground (or in anything else for that matter).
It's almost like a whole 'nother country.
Derek