I tend to agree with most of Rick's response. Learning Chinese may be a personal satisfaction for you, but he's right...to them, learning English is much more important, and some of the terminology doesn't always translate the way you want it to.
You don't mention your income, but if you can save $10,000 in blocks, I'd say just save it up until you have all that you need. If you can do that, then you can do all of your training at once, and it will go faster. What I am NOT saying is that you should turn it all over to a school at once--pay as you go.
Okay...that said...not having a degree is going to be a severe detriment. You might get hired by a regional here in the US with no problem without one, but within the US, you will be severely limited beyond that. The regionals are undergoing a fundamental restructuring right now, and the company you start with may not survive or be a place you want to stay.
I don't know if foreign carriers emphasize the degree as much (I think Emirates does), but as was noted, time-in-type, or time in a certain size plane matters. The issue for you in focusing on China is that by the time you are competitive, they may not have the need for you that they do now. Or, as noted, the physical gets you.
I'm not going to say what you should or shouldn't do, but I do want you to see the reality for what it is. In this case, your age combined with the lack of a 4 year degree is a pretty heavy anchor for doing much more than being an RJ pilot in the US. If you want to limit yourself to that, by the definition you provided, you will succeed (assuming the lifestyle shock doesn't negatively affect your family life). Realistically, right now, you're 5-7 years (and 5 is very,
very optimistic) from being in a position to
start standing out from other applicants, and that's if all goes exactly according to plan....which, this being aviation, it won't. That's an FAR.
Here's the fastest time line I think you could do, without taking breaks:
14-18 months to get through your CFIIMEI at All ATP or similar. That finishes you with 250-300 hours;
18-24 months (closer to 24) to get to 1500 hours;
get hired by a regional, and allow 3-4 months for training with all of the potential pitfalls included therein;
a minimum of 18 months (from your start date) as an FO to get the 1,000 hours of 121 time as an FO that is now required to upgrade--if it happens faster, great;
be awarded an upgrade bid with no delays due to stagnation at your regional (you will be making $35-40K);
upgrade training takes 2 months or so, after which you will be on reserve, which always seems to be longer and worse for captains. Allow 24-36 months to reach 1,000-1,500 TPIC, but you'll be making the $50K+ you targeted.
Assuming that you will be competitive with such relatively low time, on the low end, the time line is 6 years, on the high end of what I postulated, it's 8 years....If you do pursue this, use the time when you are instructing and just flying the line to knock out the 4 year degree.
All of this also assumes that nothing else knocks you off track, such as a divorce, a medical issue, family emergency, finances, etc.
If you want to do this, you need to thoroughly evaluate the totality of the commitment.