I think the question was - what alternative was there to 2 Chinese players competing in the semi-finals, when they were the 2 that had advanced to that semi-finals match? They couldn't just say "we refuse to compete."
Per the bracket diagram in the article, out of the four players in the semi-finals, three were Chinese. So there was no way to avoid a match between two Chinese contenders. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done in terms of tournament structure to avoid it when one nation's team is consistently strong.