Actually, I bid to differ! This is a terrible generalization, to say that non-native speakers' English are poorer than that of the Chinese themselves! I know many people here in China who speak English as a second or third language and yet, speak and write equivalent to that of a native speaker and in some instances, even better!

When it comes to speaking, I would say that native speakers might "teach" better because the Chinese seem to be rather receptive to accents (probably due to having a language very dependent on phonetics), still, there are many non-native speakers with good/clear accents contrary to native speakers who mispronounce words and lack eloquence!

Here's a fact; there are many non-native English speakers who who teach in not only Beijing but Shanghai as well.

Anyway, the truth of the matter is, it doesn't matter from which country you are from, most of the time, the basic criteria would be that you are white and that you can speak "good-enough" English. It also helps to lie that you're from one of those English native speaking countries!

It's funny, many countries don't even have native speakers teaching their locals English, yet their locals are able to express themselves fluently in English.

To conclude, I completely understand where wanting to learn English from native speakers come but it's rather aggravating to find that the Chinese employ just anyone who's white. They'd rather have a white Russian rather than a black American teaching their classes English!!!!