Being chinese and born and raised in North America, and also having the privilege of spend time in Hong Kong and China, i am not very surprised that its a 54% pass rate. As a matter of fact, if anything, im surprised its not even higher.
I agree with many of the comments above that Chinese people arent smarter than any other race out there, but they do study MUCH HARDER. Its true that they have a different mindset. I'll be the first to admit it; i was born in a western country with western habits of partying and wasting time when i could of used that time more effectively for studying.
The thing with China, is that many of them are good at things like crunching numbers and math so it doesnt surprise me that much. Rarely will you ever attend college in Canada or US and see other foreign chinese students take a BA in liberal arts or Sociology. Its always engineering related, physics, math, finance etc.....so no. it doesnt surprise me.
what does surprise me is how so many of them passed, since im under the assumption that there is no "chinese translation of CFA exams". Alot of these guys probably had to work twice as hard in learning english, WHILE studying for the exam.
Having said that, it kinda sucks for me, cause im taking the level I exam in june, and now i have to fight it out with about 2348752039847520984 million chinese people to get into the top percentile! doh!!!