WTF?
Who let this person write on El Reg? Does he take his own article for real? Also a bit offensive to El Reg's readership, as given the tech enthusiasts it's very likely part of them were in the position the author unjustifiably calls "suckers".
The article also makes a bad argument, surely if Apple could ship the necessary millions of units for launch day they would still get the queues PLUS would be able to announce huge millions of units sold within the first n days, thereby netting even more media publicity.
As for the actual news Chinese scalpers were already buying units in the US in large quantities to take to China, it's unfortunately not really unexpected the situation would warm up even more in their home country. There's a lot of profit to be made by the scalpers and I suspect most are part of various chinese triads, with corresponding turf wars as well.