I like the problem you’re trying to solve (China gets crushed too easily), but I think your solution is complicated and confusing. China is supposed to simultaneously have both a normal economy and a partisan economy? So would you add a factory? A capital that can be looted? Are you saying that if China owns 6 territories, then they can deploy 3 infantry as partisans, plus 2 more infantry at the factory? Or would the factory be capped at one unit per turn? How do you distinguish Chinese artillery from American artillery if the Americans invade via the Pacific?
I think if we adopted all of your suggestions at once (more starting infantry for China, China can build artillery, China gets to use both a partisan economy and a normal economy in the same territories) then China would be over powered. Right now China + Hong Kong + Burma have 6 Allied infantry, and Manchuria + Kiangsu + Thailand have 9 Axis infantry. If you even that up so that both sides start with 9 infantry, and if you let China produce 5 infantry per turn, then, as a rough rule of thumb, Japan will have to produce or transport an average of 6 infantry per turn into China in order to make progress and start rolling China back toward Kazakhstan…but that’s a lot to ask. 6 infantry per turn is Japan’s entire starting income on turn 1, and about half of Japan’s income on turn 2. It really doesn’t leave Japan any margin to expand its navy to defend against a US Pacific campaign, or to try out aggressive strategies against India or Siberia or Australia. You’re kind of forcing Japan to go all-in on China every game, which is not that much more interesting than turning China into a doormat. The ideal would be for China to be tough enough that you need to put some Japanese reinforcements there if you want to win, but weak enough that you can usually afford to mostly neglect China if you’re comfortable with a stalemate.
So, here’s one way to do that:
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Add 2 more starting Chinese infantry to Yunnan – this means that the Flying Tigers will almost always survive unless Japan wants to abandon other turn-1 objectives and risk serious fighter losses, or unless Japan wants to empty out Thailand and let the British walk into Thailand and collect the British national objective there.
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Add 1 starting Chinese infantry to Ningxia – this gives the Chinese army a bit of depth, so that if the Japanese attack Suiyuan, Hupeh, and Fukien on turn 1, the Chinese still have something relevant to fight back with in the north.
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Allow Chinese forces to move freely into Burma, Hong Kong, and/or Thailand – this makes it a little more dangerous for Japan to completely ignore China.
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Allow the USA to spend $12 to replace the Flying Tigers ($10 + shipping) if they are destroyed – this makes it a little harder to permanently knock China out of the game.
Otherwise leave everything the same as OOB rules. This should be more than enough to keep China interesting, without making China so powerful that Japan gets sucked into a mandatory total war in China in every single game.