If you have ever seen the inner workings of a student hiring committee, you would not say that Chinese students are given a leg up.

Yes, they generally pay more. However, there are so many highly qualified Chinese applicants that universities generally hold them to a much higher standard, in order to avoid admitting "too many" Chinese students.

This is all a function of China producing many more highly qualified students (at the high-school and undergraduate level) than the United States does. If everything were done purely according to academic merit, there would be several times as many Chinese students as American students at American universities.