I work in Europe and we happen to apply patents, the most important of which are extended in the US, China and various countries according to our competition.
Earlier this year, I had an issue with extending one of my patents to China.
I got a formal letter in perfect english (not in Chinese mind you), raising an issue within the submitted text that indeed rendered it not really patentable.
With the approbation of our IP expert I proposed a redacted text, recognizing the issue and suggesting our new redaction would solve it.
Just two weeks after I got a second, more elaborate reply, still in an english better than mine, that commented my text more in detail and still pointed up a non-patentable point. We prepared a second comment. (at that point, in China like in most other places, if the patent is still rejected there is no more appeal)
One week later, our patent was accepted in China —with a wording much better than in any of the other countries we applied for, including the original language.
I don't wish to conclude on the Chinese potential, on Communist government handling of things vs ours, or whatever.
But some comparisons are telling...