The discussion on stackexchange focused more on whether programmers in the east, generally speaking, are of sufficient quality. Living in China and going to a local university learning chinese, I've feel that a lot of the symptoms described in the discussion are more of a result of education systems.

A lot of my Chinese friends have expressed the need to get a good job, thus there is pressure for them to be in a major that 'guarantees' that: computer science/engineering is seen as desirable in that light. Having attended one of the computer science classes, I've seen two striking things:

1) Only a small percent of the people in this major are have an actual interest in the topic. The rest hope to get some administrative job in a big company and that this degree will be their ticket in.

2) There is a mechanical sense to the way projects and assignments are done. The philosophy seems to be: if I follow the steps that the teacher gave then I am able to solve this problem. There isn't an emphasis on analysis or synthesis. I attribute this to the emphasis on rote learning.

These two things make it easier to see why the symptoms described in the discussion occur. In addition, I noticed that the level of education is quite behind my own college experience. They were learning things in their third-year first semester that I learned in my first-year second semester.

As a side note, I don't go to one of the top tier universities; I was told that my university is a second or third tier university, so I suspect that this is the reality for most Chinese computer science students.