Actually, that reminded me of the summer of 2009, when I went to China. A lot of foreign-company stuff there (e.g. cars, some electronics) is actually pretty expensive, sometimes more expensive than in North America even if you factor in the exchange rate. What you're saying is definitely true, where Asian-made products are first shipped to the U.S., and then shipped to where they're going to be sold.
Of course, in Australia, your incomes by exchange rate might make up for higher prices. For example, Australian GDP per capita by exchange rate is over US$54,000, but by purchasing power it's more like US40,000, which is still pretty high. Most of China obviously isn't that rich, so imagine how much Chinese people would complain about price differences. One of the main reasons why there's still a lot of knockoffs/piracy in China, and many other developing countries.