This article is written for you, if you have been told recently by a journal editor that your manuscript needs to be edited by a “native speaker.”
You don’t need to read further, if you understand that here a “native speaker” has its specific meaning: it means a native speaker of English who also has some expertise in what you do and CAN write.
We are all Chinese. (Ok, some of us are Chinese xxx, with different nationalities.) Most of us speak fluent Chinese, likely with some regional accent. Does that mean we all can write Chinese articles well? The answer is clearly NO. Not only that, a research paper on life science, written in Chinese by a scientist who is a native speaker of Chinese, often reads like Greek to a layman.
It’s true that all “normal” British people are native speakers of British English. Most of them, however, cannot help you with your manuscript even if they have Ph.D. degrees. What you need is someone who knows how to write research papers well, preferably someone who has a good publication record in your field.
Most importantly, you can learn how to write well yourself, if you are determined to do so!
Updates: I became an English editor of a journal whose chief editor had some concerns about hiring me. This Blog helped him to make his decision, and I was hired.