Character from China is awful pig? Oh dear! (9)
I believe the answer is:
ideograph
'character from china' is the definition.
(ideographs are used in the Chinese language)
'awful pig? oh dear' is the wordplay.
'awful' indicates anagramming the letters.
'pig'+'oh'+'dear'='pigohdear'
'pigohdear' is an anagram of 'IDEOGRAPH'.
'is' is the link.
(Other definitions for ideograph that I've seen before include "sort of character!" , "symbol" .)