What is the point of climbing if the system can be gamed? Do Chinese players really outspend the rest of us by that much at the Gem Store? Do they begin PP training when they are just born? Does every player who's name I can actually read just SUCK? Spoiler Cough. Chinese Mafia.
No they are losing to each other then rejoining their guilds. U can't fight and get to those ranks... Unfortunately.
Splitting hairs, I know, but I still don't think the cheating term applies here. They're just squeezing rank out of the game by exploiting a loophole that the devs failed to anticipate. If there was a rule somewhere which said "Don't do this", then it'd be cheating. If bold steps are taken to prevent it, and they find another way around it, that's also cheating. But 'til then, hate it all you want, complain (loudly) until it gets changed, but give them a little credit for figuring it out. Either way, It needs to be fixed, ideally along with several changes to fix the broken rank system.
That's noble of you, sir. Now let's go get those dirty [long censored profane name stream] loophole finders.