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.
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I can't see snobbery involved on the part of the employer choosing those with 'good honours degrees', if he has the choice; even if the degrees are for throwing pots. If you have a teacher's vacancy to fill, and two pottery graduates turn up to apply, and there's nothing between them, you may be sensible to choose the candidate with the best degree. The employer may well reason that the bloke with second class honours spent his time lazing about and not throwing pots when he should have been. The employer may very well reason that this tells him something about the man.

As for the integrity bit. I'm bound to say that I have never met any-body who would question what you say.