The line you quoted isn't discussion, it is stating results. In the article and the paper there is discussion about the differences in education between countries. For example...
(From the article)
> CS departments and CS education in general have a longer history and are much more established in the United States than in China or India especially.
> A lot more is spent per student in the U.S. than in the other three countries.
(From the paper)
> United States have likely similar math and science levels as students in Russia (Implying the difference in CS scores comes from somewhere else)
But the line you quoted was the only "discussion" on the differences in gender in the article. I think there has to be at least something to discuss.Why is the gender gap smallest in China? Why is there a gap at all for people sitting in the same classes? Are there any other metrics (like age?) that had similar differences? Did the size of the gap change when looking at elite institutions?
To be completely fair, there was some discussion in the last paragraph in the paper, but the only hint at what might be causing the difference was that the women in CS aren't high achieving enough. I wouldn't count that as in depth discussion on the cause.
> The gender gap in skills does indicate that more effort is needed to attract higher-achieving female students into CS [...]
Just putting a chart at stating results the end of a paper and an article isn't a discussion. There is a gap between genders about half as large as the gap between countries. Having questions about that doesn't imply a narrative.