the original article is talking about native Chinese in China, though the fact that they're attending a school with an english teacher from America is also a strong filter
The article characterizes them as elite students, so you then need to compare them to elite American students. Elite as in highly performing in school and motivated.
True, the author is teaching at an elite Beijing high school. But elite American high schools are usually disproportionally populated with Asian (an very often Chinese) students.
