HSA.
You could not be further from the truth. The foreign guys presently in CS do not have any regrets. Good money, easy flying and CS do a great job when it comes to roster requests. We all have 1-3 weeks off over Xmas. I don't know of many other outfits that accept the resultant roster inefficiencies to give that.
Many of us do occasionally fly single crew domestic. I believe everyone logs everything as P1 but we are all older fellla's and don't give a crap about logbook hours anymore. Yes, the Chinese guy is PIC on international flights. The reason being is that he is Chinese and so are the cabin crew allowing better comms. Simple as that!
Flights are usually split in half so you do the TKOF or the LDG. Flights over about 12hrs are split 3 ways.
As mentioned earlier, don't worry about the details until you get accepted. My understanding is that the overall pass rate is around 10% presently.
Be aware that all the promised bases will only open if and when they get enough guys. I think the present number is 6.
Hope that clears up some of the misconceptions out there.