That’s also been my experience, avoid China go for India!
My only experience with China is AAP which does not have Russia involved so what I found is 99% of the time people avoided China. I’m not sure how this game is set up but my guess is that most games will consist of people circumventing China and transporting troops straight to South Asia. Unless China is a vital part of victory for Japan I don’t see it being a huge part of the partial game. Now the global game, that is a whole other animal….