I think that goal of China is simple - to assure that Bush sign proper treaties about that kind of weapons in space. Wonder why USA don't want to do that..

A treaty is just a piece of paper to be discarded when inconvienent. I doubt the Chinese would spend all that money to develop an ASAT capability with the goal of getting a signature on a piece of paper. More likely, this is another weapon in their inventory to be used when they see fit.

As for the debris, preliminary indications seem to indicate hundreds of trackable pieces and probably thousands of pieces too small to consistently track. Some estimates are that the larger pieces will stay in orbit for 10 years or more.