I was the assistant to the regional CFO of a company that was actually higher in the Fortune 500 than Halliburton. My responsibility was as an analyst for the PRC.
Of course I did concede that it depends largely on what one is doing in China and who one is dealing with. In some cases the report probably is very right. Its might not always be that way though.
With a lot of those types of operations (say textiles for example) many of the corporations don't care one bit about management in China. They just put in the order from a supplier. That absolutely happens.
Who needs an American expat to manage that kind of operation?
In those instances (which now that you revealed that it was manufacturing it makes more sense) there are a lot of abuses.
In other instances where there is Joint Ventures like with GM or something its not even like that.
And to boot the paychecks will have Marriott or Holiday Inn stamped on the face of them.
In China where you have direct foreign management (or at least foreign participation in management) (say for example people that ensure quality for higher end products) there are exponentially less problems. Motorola would be one example. What are they going to do? Outsource the management and quality control to the Chinese govt? No way.
On the other hand though for low tech things (like shoes or clothes, what is a foreigner going to do? Teach the Chinese how to run a sewing machine?