There might be something to that statement. The Chinese can't afford the good stuff, especially on a mass scale.
Margins in China are extremely tight. Some tech companies are going into cooperation with each other in China to drive costs down. Thats unheard of.
The Chinese market is extremely price sensitive. At the same time the government (where all these techies sell their stuff) is willing to spend lots...however they want 10 chips for the price of what we would pay for 4 of them...
There has to be a happy medium there somewhere. That medium is "4 year old tech"...sold to ensure a profit. They are going to have to sell things as commodity items.
The government of China is about to turn its attention from cel phones to internet infrastructure... and they want bang for their buck.