The Chinese Room is an argument that a Turing-like test is inadequate to prove understanding of a language because a combination of two things, neither of which have understanding, could conceivably pass it for every test scenario.
The fact that one of those two things is impossible (or, alternatively, is equivalent to a device encoding a full understanding of the language) negates the argument.
I see your point. It's been a very long time since I've read the original text, but I don't remember this being my impression of the argument being made, and that would indeed be a very simplistic one. But I might be mixing it up with some of the debates on semantics within linguistics, which is of course a slightly different topic.
The fact that one of those two things is impossible (or, alternatively, is equivalent to a device encoding a full understanding of the language) negates the argument.