Chinese miners alone won't be able to replace the 6000 full nodes that exist in the network today, but they can collectively agree to implement a soft limit on block size in case a more aggressive approach gains momentum. From what I've heard, the move from 20Mb to 8Mb was pushed by Chinese miners due to poor connectivity in the region.
This is exactly what BIP100 gives them. By the mining pool voting with the blocks it produces, the majority can pick what the blocksize limit is. If the majority of Chinese pools don't want to go above 8MB, then they keep their voting at 8MB or under, and it's the top 80% of votes that judge the blocksize.
BIP100 is the perfect compromise for the current situation.
First, it introduces a dynamic ability to adjust the size up to a 32MB maximum, which will be able to scale the network for at least the majorly forseeable future - that's potentially 224 Tps. You have to remember that Satoshi's original limit was 33MB, which this falls inline with.
Second, it keeps the blocksize down to a manageable size, which will prolong the lifetime of a full node on the network. An 8GB blocksize limit with XT? And you still clamor for decentralization, whining about the number of nodes declining? That large of a blocksize will accelerate the centralization of nodes, as only those who have top-tier datacenter hosting will be able to run a full node due to the bandwith limits. Hard drive sizes matter not, but
with an 8GB block it would take over 6500 seconds to pass that block info on a 100Mbit network connection. It would take over 650 seconds (longer than the 10-minute block threshold) on a Gigabit network connection. That is completely unrealistic.
In order to surpass Visa (150 million transactions per day), we would
only need a 256MB block size. That's a far cry from needing an 8GB blocksize.
In order to surpass PayPal (10 million transactions per day), we would
only need a 16MB block size. That's a far cry from needing an 8GB blocksize.
Nodes need miners, and miners need nodes. Each of them play a critical part in the network - without the nodes to protect the network, it fails, and without the miners to mine transactions to be protected, there's also no network.
In order to keep the miners going there needs to be enough transaction volume and fees to sustain them once the block rewards can't. This proposal allows the market to dictate the blocksize, so that there's enough pressure in the blocks to have higher fees, but also enough block size to allow for those cheaper transactions to go through. The proposal allows for expansion when there's enough transaction volume to warrant it, and contraction when it doesn't, so that miners will be able to maintain incentive to keep the network alive.