"The academic culture in China is such that cheating and lying is widespread" This statement doesn't "blame the culture". In this sentence, culture means "a s

"The academic culture in China is such that cheating and lying is widespread" This statement doesn't "blame the culture". In this sentence, culture means "a set of behaviors". The sentence doesn't speculate about why that (speculated) culture exists, and it certainly isn't saying "Chinese culture promotes cheating". Actually, all it's really saying is, "Cheating and lying is widespread in academia in China". That statement is totally compatible with what you wrote. When having these discussions, it helps to interpret other people's perspectives charitably. Communication is hard. We don't need to make it harder by assuming that everyone who says something that could be interpreted as racism is actually a racist. Plus, I've found that if I interpret other perspectives charitably, I almost always end up closer to understanding what the other person actually meant.