Bitcoin addresses are binary data, they are often expressed in Base64 to make them human readable, and allow for easy cutting and pasting. Although Chinese characters could use a similar scheme, as Base64, I'm not aware of any that exists at the moment.

So the next question jumps clear;

Why don't the chinese people have a fork of the Bitcoin project in their base language?

china + bitcoin = http://hxtop.com

...ask those guys

Thousands of character choices versus - what - 62 choices for alphanumeric characters... how much shorter could addresses be?

对馬訂書釘電池?

I read both just fine. It's easy to read both if you're versed in either one IMO. And no, Singapore and Malaysia use the simplified version exclusively, not the traditional version.