The lightheartedness and the complete nativity with which some people here suggest to "just do it anyway" and "you're the PIC and China is an ICAO member" is really mind boggling.
"Being a PIC" of a 777 would not have impressed a BUK missile if Kiev would have replied "negatiwww, due to lestliction" when an unfortunate crew would have deviated 20-30nm off track due to weather, contrary to ATC instructions.
It is not the third world.
Indeed it's not. China is a totalitarian communist police state (try surfing to Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or any blogsp*t, and while you're at it, have a look at who's the number one nation worldwide in executing people) with a large military and air force.
Now I'm absolutely
not suggesting that it's a good idea to fly near or through a TS, but with the Chinese police state and MH17 in mind, I can definitely understand the great hesitation that some crews can have in deliberately ignoring a "negative" from ATC when asking for a deviation around weather.
The current inflexibility of ATC in China is outright dangerous and needs to be addressed as soon as possible before a real accident happens!
p.s. I find it a big coincidence that people who have "HKG" or "hong kong" as location on their pprune profile never seem to experience many problems with ATC in China. Are national Chinese and Hong Kong airlines ("one nation, two systems") treated differently as opposed to European, North American or other Asian airlines?