There is no doubt that the recent Chinese announcement will lead to a scheduled service
There is every doubt when a bilateral has to be renegotiated between London based civil servants and their counterparts in Beijing. Just watch the focus of the negotiation being on traffic rights for BA (from London) to a shipload of Chinese provincial cities (most of them bigger than your average European city) and reciprocal rights for Chinese carriers to London. If there's any time in the meeting for "AOB" then I guess someone might ask "what about Birmingham or Manchester?"
As for this utter nonsense and willy waving over which (non London) city could / should get a direct Chinese connection, and which region gets the most tourists this is drivel! What will drive any decision, apart from legalities, is where the best yield is going to come from, in terms both of passengers and the Cinderella revenue stream - cargo.
BHX and MAN should be working together to ensure us disadvantaged people living and working outside the Southeast get a piece of the action!