Shenzhou is not a name, it is a designation

Nice! I forgot that one!

 

Dirt is very important to agrarian peoples.

 

Naw, 深圳, not 深州。州 is Chinese for province, not city. 深圳transliterates to Shenzhen.

 

The most likely choices for Shenzhou would be 神舟, the Chinese ship, or 深州, a city 深州市. Apologies to the other poster who brought this up as a city. I was sure they, like me, at first thought the ship was named after well known city Shenzhen. But it's not. Since the city of shenzhou is pretty obscure, I'm certain it's named in honor of the Chinese capsule.

 

it is fine. It pays homage to the current series of Chinese space crafts, which were the first manned space flights by China.
OP is over thinking this. As someone who is fluent in Chinese, I don't see any problems with the usage in the ST. It's neat they even did it, since in TNG they frequently used Japanese ships for names, like Kyushu etc, when it is more likely that China will have a bigger role in space exploration this century than the Japan.

 

The fact that the Captain's name is Phillipa Georgiou, implies to me that initially the race of the Captain was open, and the ship was already called USS Shenzhou so it seems more coincidental to me.

 

After some research on 深州市, it's very doubtful Star Fleet cares to name a ship after a minor city in northern China (though there is/was a computer manufacturer based there). Another, more likely possibility has reared its head: 神州！Shenzhou is a poetic nickname name for the county of China, meaning divine land.

So there you go!
If I were a betting man (and I am) I'd bet on the spacecraft program or China. If I know writers and movie producers they discussed the possible meanings and are comfortable with any of the above meanings and will wait to actually decide which one is best fit in some episode complication.

 

That's not really the kind of research that's relevant, though. No one knows how minor that city may be in 300 years. 300 years in our past, Washington DC didn't exist, Chicago didn't exist, New Orleans was a tiny new settlement, etc.

 

She’s not Asian, she’s Greek, based on her last name. She’s only played by an Asian actor. Just like how Picard is played by an English actor but is in fact French.

 

Well, you can be Greek by nationality but Asian by ancestry, just as Michelle Yeoh is Malaysian by nationality but Chinese by ancestry, or George Takei is American by nationality but Japanese by ancestry. So it's incorrect to say "she's not Asian." I guess the term would be Sino-Greek.