With one or two exceptions (that I've seen), the "Chinese lag" phenomenon seldom is a problem. Those that do however seem to be more intermittent than constant. Perhaps as you, or somebody, suggested last night - Chinese play behind communist firewalls and use proxy's to game, and this causes inherent lag.
In last nights game, one of the players simply named "long" was at the losing end of a really long (pardon the pun - there were 4 Chinese on that team) game, and I think he alt-tabbed because he appeared afk. His ping was spiking during that time, however when your level 6 Eradica showed up where he'd parked his armada, his level 6 Ragnarov came to life, and only after the Eradica went on it's period and PMS'd all over his fleet did he drop. Subsequently in the channel lobby, he changed channels proving he was not afk but just sandbagging to drag out the game. This type of behavior contributes to a bad rep worse than lag issues imo.
On a side note:
Btw, I nominate that replay as a textbook suicide players guide as you were isolated smack dab in the middle between all four Chinese, and managed (with inordinate and timely feed from me I might add) to occupy them the entire game. Other than your HW, all you had was a couple of distant refugee moons. Matter of fact; you were constantly doubled, and still managed to bastion your HW effectively enough to repeatedly repel inumerous attempts to dislodge you. New players could see just what's possible when facing overwhelming opposing odds when you don't phreak out, and have a little faith and patience. Had you not tied up half their team basically, we would not have won that game I don't believe.
