It's not the best, but to be fair they're pretty easy to see on CX dot com while you're booking. Presumably you didn't read it during the booking process.

Once you've booked, yea then you gotta speak travel agent talk. They do send you the full rules but they're not in plain English.

You are definitely missing something though, because you certainly can cancel your booking on Manage My Booking. I'm not sure where you're going but cancelling on CX online is easy (way too easy IMO, I've almost done this a few times accidentally when checking in and picking seats).

Btw, every CX flight is "international"...

Another workaround you can do is just make a dummy booking on CX. This probably isn't ideal, but it works and is a lot faster than waiting on hold. In the dummy booking once you click through you'll get the full fare rules in "more normal" English.