And I expect that if I they were notorious for shortchanging (or shortcashing in this case) teachers for being 5 minutes late, I would hear about it. Never underestimate the magnitude of online complaining.
I wouldn't necessarily count on that. Some schools are too new and/or too small to have much history online.
Not this one. I worked there in '05-06 and it was not either new or tiny then.
I'm with Ericthered and some of the others: I think that contract is a disaster waiting to happen. Personally, I'd run while the running was good... 
I'm ambivalent. It was basically a good place to work, Zhuhai is a lovely city, being able to walk across the border to Macao or grab a ferry to HK was nice, and so was getting HK TV stations -- in English and uncensored.
On the other hand, the contract oddity is disturbing, certainly grounds to consider bailing out.