AitgeoChinese places, ranked for one question at a time.

Shanghai

Shanghai is the easy landing

Use it as the base when the trip is short, the flight lands there, or you want the city that asks the least of you on day one.

The center has a full metro and more English than inland cities. It is also the expensive end of the published cost briefings. You are paying for that ease.

It is a weak choice only when the trip's real subject is the Great Wall, Sichuan food, or the Terracotta Army. In those cases it is an arrival city, not the whole holiday.