I would totally agree with him though. You don’t want to get entangled into opaque Chinese financial schemes as a foreigner. You just don’t have the knowledge (inside or otherwise) or guanxi to do it well. If something goes wrong, the legal system isn’t going to help you out.
The USA has a functional legal system that doesn't discriminate between foreigners and locals. If you are promised something and that can't be delivered, you don't have to just accept 没办法, it is the difference between a first world country and a third-world one.
In China, there is nothing but "bad investments", the stock market is insider trader heavy, the real estate market is bonkers, the shadow banking market...which your bank, even if it is ICBC, will actively try to sell you on, is really dodgy. Then there are crowd sourced micro finance platforms that are basically Ponzi schemes...heck, bitcoin looks like a great safe transparent investment in comparison.
