Thanks to rankourabu's help, I was able to put together a business class itinerary to China with a mere $156 in taxes (plus booking fee) and 125K miles.

Muti-city and open jaw itinerary as follows:

YYZ-EWR-ZRH-PEK on UA/UA/LX
PEK-NKG (Nanjing) on CA
PVG-IST-IAD-YYA on TK/TK/UA

Maybe there is hope for AE. Nah, I'm still going to UA. I had booked 2 First Class tickets for PEK-NKG on UA for 20K miles and $8 each. When I realized I was able to work this into my AE itinerary at no extra charge, I cancelled them, for FREE!!! What a great benefit for their status fliers.