I realize now that I've made a mistake. Chinese miners will sponsor a "core" dev but not a Core dev.

That is, not one of the existing Core devs.

I think the important question is what will happen if and when the dev sponsored by the Chinese miners tries to bring the code in a direction contrary to Core's.

Either the Chinese miners plus dev would start a new fork (with majority hashpower) or they would suffer loss and humiliation as their pull requests were rejected.

So you're either a contender for the throne or a servant to the powerful.

Choose wisely, Chinese miners.