Thank you for your prompt answer! I appreciate someone with your experience chiming in--it appears to me that there is a fair amount of misinformation regarding the subject. I would like to have a full understanding of the issue so that I can help educate others. Could you point me towards the right direction, e.g. documentation of the mechanisms?
The exact implementation isn't publicly documented as far as I'm aware. All we know is that they will begin mining blocks before their own full nodes have actually seen them. Who they are connected to, how many sources they wait to see the block from before switching (assuming more than 1), etc., are not publicly stated by any of the pools engaging in this activity (its referred to as SPV mining).
EDIT:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg11790734#msg11790734 - F2pool/Discus Fish publicly stating that even after SPV mining by chinese pools caused a fork in 2015, they had no intention to stop doing so, and don't believe that Antpool or BTC China will either. You can see clearly that all 3 pools are still doing it just by looking at the sheer number of empty blocks they mine each week.