Kelly told me that this is going to be a tour in China. She said that the first year they have invited many players and the next year the top 16 or 32 will be seeded and the rest will have to qualify for each event. She has been told that the prize monies will increasing significantly (we will see) so she feels that she needs to come to these tour events in order to assure herself of being in the seeded and qualified list.
I don't think that this even qualifies for WPA sanctioning just as the regional tours in the USA are also not WPA events.
Regarding the World Open designation I think that this has been discussed a jillion times. The WPA has no authority to stop any other promoter from using "World" in the title of their events. All they can do is remind the players that there are no points and no records given by the WPA for such events. If they wanted to be heavy handed then they could certainly ban any player from WPA events if they participate in events which are not WPA sanctioned and use the world "World" in the title of the event. That's about the only leverage that the WPA has to stop regional promoters from abusing the word World in their lower level events.