Looking at the route thing at the start of this week's episode there looks to be a flight which skips China entirely, that might be it, although it would be nice if they recorded the gap arriving at the airport then staggered the restart accordingly on the other side (like a Virtual Safety Car...
Being in a rich country with a lot of private cars does take the edge off it a bit IMHO, better watching them choose to do the rattling local bus for 20p or spend £100 on the luxury one.
I’d like to see them do something like Gibraltar to Cape Town with no checkpoints, real variety of options...