By the time your first knight is out, Chinese has the gold they need, researches the first gold upgrade, makes a few spearmen, and they can't go out anyway. So there's no big point in aging up faster as French.

French often go second stable first to leverage knight mobility and strength, because if Chinese fully invests in units, you probably can't get enough archer mass up in time.

A horseman opening against French is a massive improvement over a spear opening; spears struggle to catch knights and get cheap shots, but horsemen can get kills and get away safely.

For China, your goal is always hit castle because if you play along feudal, knights are the kings. The problem is that once the knight count gets to like 20 knights, the way they keep formation shuffling, the injured ones just are never being hit, so Chivalry heals them up and you feel like you're just in the slowest death cycle.

China has a much easier time getting food in thanks to Pro Scout and having a castle age followup. Hand cannon placements are by default the anti knight archer kind, so much penetration going through there, works really well.