No they are not. It is a state monopoly in essence. And Yu's family did support her out of their own pocket until she was 13. But she couldn't go farther than recreational club skating without going into the state system.
I think the fact that Russia could not keep togethet its most promising dance team is enough to show its difference from the Chinese system. Zahorski-Guerreiro is another example of a team that came together largely on their own, having to fight (and cross international obstacles) to prove themselves (not without state help, but also not formed or wholly supported by it). So is this practice unique to China? That alone is enough to raise red flags. If a forced partnership or breakup of one is so rare that only one country in the skating world practices it, one has to ask why, and the reason is that it violates the heart and spirit of the skaters. And why is that? Because it is forcing them to be intimate together and to try to become "two as one" -- when in fact it is a relationship where an older and more powerful party, simply grabbed the other as if she was standing in a brothel window and broke up her successful partnership with someone else completely against her will (and possibly her previous partner's too, as, if some here are correct, his career just went from promising to the dust bin).But I bet China could have kept I&K together
No way will ISU do anything. For one thing, we are talking about an entity that cannot follow its own rules. In addition ISU didn't do anything during Sochi did they?
Maybe that will change under president Didier. 
I didn't mind that he didn't help her because in pairs the girls often have to get up themselves after they fall. But he could have slowed and wait with the next element, to give her time to catch up and get more points for proper sbs jump, rather than each of them jumping at completely different times. It was like if he did it on purpose, to get as bad result as possible.
Fwiw my comment is not meant for literal interpretation. What I meant is that you can go after an athlete for some tangible wrongdoing, which is sth to keep in mind, IF this indeed happens
Also TEB warmup.
Even in the West, the police are not much use for abuse. They come, the abuser stops and promises never to do it again, and they go away. Or, frequently the abused person refuses to press charges. I remember the ballerina Darci Kistler doing that after she called in the cops on her husband Peter Martins. They had too much at stake in their careers, or at least his (I dont remember if she had retired yet), to deal with the consequences of an arrest for DV. Certainly a little Chinese pairs skater would come under enormous pressure not to press charges. Police are much more direct employees (arms) of the state than pairs skaters.
Like I said already my comments are not meant for literal interpretation. If you were a Chinese out for revenge or whatever motive what would you do?
It also shows that she did the jumps just a few seconds after him. So if he waited just a few seconds, they would actually jump at the same time. The element is called side by side jumps, not one after the other jumps. Skaters do improvise sometimes, if they have to. Even pairs. For example, I have seen a pair adding a death spiral at the end because they missed it during the program because of a fall. Here they wouldn't need to improvise that much. All he needed was pushing slightly less to give her time to catch up, and delay his jump a few second. I am sure the music would be fine. They could do the jump together at the time she did it on her own, and then continue the same way as they did after her jump.
