To play a modern Chinese game I recommend the Mongols, though one must be careful with overextension before the 18th century. Last night I almost won a time victory losing by only 13 points but I didn't want to start a war just to make the difference. I was never ahead in the tech race due to Arabia but until the 1990s I was head-to-head with the United States, meanwhile, the UK was an era behind.
If I did not contest Eurasia with Russia I think I would have been better with technology but as Mongolia, I do not like having an aggressive northern neighbor. One can dispatch Russia before 1500 but this is risky due to overextension so I only launched my offensive as my first factory complex was being built-in Karakorum. At this point attacking Moscow was suicidal but I decimated almost all of the frontier colonies east of the Urals except for cities on the arctic coast that are time-consuming to reach.
The Forbidden Palace is critically important, State Party can also allow for more Eurasian expansion (the main goal is to block Russian settlers from going east in peacetime). Itaipu Dam is a must to electrify the continent. My success in reaching modernity was proven by creating the Manhatten Project on the southern shores of the Amur River (I suspect the Pallas Cats had a bad day)
Could I have I destroyed Arabia before gunpowder?- yes I think so but unless I raze all in my path I will surely collapse and by razing I could also allow Turkey to replace the Arabs in this case. I decided instead to focus on Asia subduing Korea, Thailand and most of South Asia (this also stopped the UK from becoming a world power. As the Yuan Dynasty was a vassal of mine I never had a large navy embarrassingly keeping Gallases (maybe they functioned as ceremonial museums) until 2020.
I also noticed some haphazard (or innovative) AI behavior. Arabian pirates seized St. John before being annexed by the Caliphate, the US had no interest in the West with the Dutch making large urban sprawls instead. The Arabs also had spread Islam to Mexico but Diplomatic conferences gradually gave Mexico to the United States.
Given China's limitations, Mongolia is the only civ that permits a true East Asian juggernaut on the continent. I think it's very possible to do much better than me, if the Russians and Arabs can be dispatched earlier.
