I do agree if 'China is all that matters' as put by AshleyB as China Eastern+Shanghai Airways and China Southern provide good coverage to/from/around China, but for everything else in Asia, ST distinctedly lacks behind. CI is Taiwan-based and is the closest thing to an entry point to South East Asia and Oceania but has a very limited network as does Garuda.

I also have another complaint here: in my experience, virtually all booking classes allow level miles accrual on Asian partners on OW and *A. By contrast, the number of classes on China Southern allowing accrual on FB is dismal, on KE it's barely better, and we have every reason to believe that the same problem will be there for China Eastern and probably CI. Now this is not just a problem of coverage but a problem of 'worth' of a partnership - I have absolutely no interest in flying a ST airline if I can't get miles on it so I think that on that front FB rather than ST generally (as SM is not affected for instance) is badly lacking behind. The logic was explained to us in the Paris meeting and is duly noted, but it remains that this is an FB-specific problem which simply does not affect BA EC and LH MM in similar ways.