I've come across academic snobs all over the world, not just in in China. For example, in the yukky UK, there's a great deal of snobbery attached to the kind of honours degree graduates have. For teaching jobs that don't even require jobholders to have the advanced subject knowledge that honours degree holders have, potential employers will insist that candidates have so-called 'good honours degrees', which means degrees that aren't third-class honours degrees!

Posters who deride foreign teachers in China for playing the fool in front of their students instead of doing serious teaching, or who look down on the teaching of oral English because it is non-academic, or who look down on kindergarten teachers for the same reason are indeed academic snobs.

Finally, there are many ordinary people who've never had a university education who do have integrity.