Before I start the discussion this is not a offense to all Chinese and Asian and I just want to point out that not all the Chinese and Asian business are like this, but quite a decent amount of the Chinese business are always exploiting employees wage.
I have worked in a couple of Asian business at Brisbane usually at real estate and hospitality and the most common one are Chinese that are always so stingy about payments and usually likes to exploit employees.
I have work experience in both Taiwan and Australia and this is based on my work experience.
Taiwan: At Taiwan I was a teacher, teaching English to children and the schools are usually private educations. Before I start the work I will usually be offer a contract or a probation contract for an evidence that the job is legitimate and when I always finish work there will always be a clock-in and clock-out time system for evidence that I'm there. Even if there were no contract at pay day there will always be the pay slip system where I must sign a signature to prove that I was working there.
Australia: I will divide this into two. One is Aussie business and the other is Chinese business.
Aussie business: In most Aussie companies I will always be offer a contract or a job offer notice before I start work I will usually be offer a contract and the contract will have some sort of payment evidence to show that I am paid correctly and legally even a clock in system are displayed. Sometimes most Aussie business even pay you slightly higher than the national wage and weekend rewards. What I feel working there is that my identity is not controlled by the employer and I have the freedom to move around and evidence saying that I was there.
Chinese business: Now this is where most of my problems are. Before I work most employers don't even offer a contract. They will always verbally announce the probation contract such as a 2 week probation. Yes, I know that some job does have probations however, the probation wage is so low like $600 a week that's basically $15 an hour. They told me to work for 8 hours a day at a busy restaurant and the pay is significantly less than the national minimum wage. Even apprenticeship and traineeship has higher salary than this. What's worse is that even when I pass the probation period the employer literally just pretended that the probation never exist and still continues to pay you the $15 hourly wage. Plus there is not clock-in system and the employer is basically the clock-in system itself. The way they paid is always so sketchy like they pay you physically instead of digitally and no tax. Even legitimate business they still pay you the national minimum which is good, but compare to Aussie business that pays you slightly higher than the national minimum. I rather work at a Aussie business than a Chinese business since Chinese business are just so stingy and never level up the pay.
Conclusion
What I'm trying to say is that when I worked at a Chinese business. I feel like I'm being controlled and most of my evidence proving that I was working there is not adequately displayed and worse of all erased. The job is so hard working and the reward you get by working is so low that is around $12 to $15 an hour (btw I was an adult that time, not a teenager). There was no contract or some sort of payment evidence to prove that the payment I get is legally earned. I know that not all of Chinese business is like this and the ones that I worked legally. The pay is still basically stuck at the national wage and doesn't really give you a tiny bit more.
When I worked at Aussies business and Taiwan there will always be some sort of evidence to prove you worked there and payment you get is legal and the Chinese business mostly tries to erased my evidence or at least exploit it.
OP is not very wrong, in China there is this kind of work culture.
But China is still a developing country, like many other poor developing countries, like how waters / waitress can be paid as little as $5/hour in Bali. I enourage you to report these cases and let FairWork to stop them in Australia.