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Why do Mainland China EB-5 applicants face a longer wait time to receive their conditional green cards?

This is a simple question of supply and demand. The current demand for EB-5 visas from China has exceeded the fixed number of visas available for Chinese applicants. The mechanics of this deal with the immigrant visa quota system. Today there are only 10,000 EB-5 visas available worldwide per (USCIS) fiscal year. The Department of State has allocated 7% of the total available visas to Chinese investors, plus any UN-claimed visas from all other countries. Demand in China is significantly greater than in any other country with Chinese investors claiming ~80% of the 10,000 visas available in any given fiscal year. Given this, the visa supply for Chinese applicants must be kept in check so that there are visas available for EB-5 applicants from the rest of the world. This is done by instituting a “cut-off date” each month (i.e., only applicants with priority dates before the cut-off date can receive an immigrant visa/green card for that month). Currently, no other countries are facing a “cut-off date” or other type of processing delay and this is unlikely to change in the near future due to lower EB-5 visa demand outside of China.