I think what is also important to note is that typically you can buy a good meal / any other stuff in Chinese airports at a reasonable price that is close to the ones in town. No 3 EUR bottle of water nonsense. You have the normal mini market and coffee/tea chains with prices identical to the city ones.

If you have a dragonpass, it lets you get fast track/escort at some airports as well (eg: Nanchang).

MU lounges in Shanghai, Xi'an, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Kunming and Chengdu, CZ lounge in Shenzhen and Changsha (unlike the airport one for most other airlines), Sichuan lounge in Chengdu (Tianfu, not notShuangliu) are very good in my opinion.

PS: Since you mention paying extra, and as the poster above noted, generally speaking, the app/airport counter upgrades generally come without lounge access and the upgraded inflight service (ie: you essentially get a bigger seat).