The entire country is a country of scammers where the rules of the game are to cheat as much as possible. Like the article said, literally think of yourself as a member of a gang where killing people gets you “street cred”. Cheating is an aspect of street cred for Chinese people.. if you cheat and get away with it, it’s something to be proud of. The Chinese will ‘lie’ to authorities about cheating, but among friends it’s high fives all around.
How do I know this? I’m Chinese. Born in the states but with ties to the east. I don’t know if it’s genetic or if it’s cultural but growing up I never purchased a single game or purchased a single movie or piece of music and I was proud of cheating the system. In fact me and many people in Asia think you’re stupid if you pay money for any form of electronic digital media when all of it can be pirated easily.
This is the mentality of basically most of Asia with the exception of Japan and to a lesser extent Korea.
I get your mentality though. The rules of US culture is basically fairness. It pervades the mentality of the country but you have to understand different games have different rules. For example in mafia the name of the game is to deceive everyone. Deception is therefore praised and you are proud if you win the game via deception. Just like how a simple game can flip a switch so can culture. China is playing mafia while the US is playing chess.