whether you like it or not, have faith that only the best will get through.
You, kind sir, are a naive fool!
Commercial pressures have been brought to bear. The bean counters merely see a necessity to get bums on seats, regardless of who you are and where you're from.
Why are they pitching so hard for guys with a CPL & 250 hours?
Well, CX thought they could get anyone world wide with zero hours to join a cadet course, and then sponsor their residency in HK. Thankfully the HKID have (correctly) identified that plan as a breach of the concept of "labour is imported only when said skills are not available locally", and put a lid on it. Hence, you need to meet a minimum experience & qualification level to be sponsored - and guess what! That threshold is a CPL & 250 hrs.
Put more simply, CX are pitching at the absolute minimum standard which they can legally offer. They tried lower, and were stopped by the government. Now, the real tragedy is that this "legal" minimum has, in effect, always been there, but they have never even gone close to it. Until they started to offer only the local package, even to expats, anyone with just a CPL & 250 hrs would not have even been considered.
Why the big change? Easy - no one with higher experience levels wants to touch this contract. Not only that, most of the absolute minimum qualification guys from "traditional recruiting markets" realise that this contract is a joke.
The bottom line is that the mere fact that they're pitching at this level shows a sheer desperation on the part of the bean counters to put bums in seats. It's nothing to do with nationality, it's about experience levels.