First America, then China gets limited approval rating (9)
I believe the answer is:
appraisal
'rating' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'first america then china gets limited approval' is the wordplay.
'first america' becomes 'a' (pst letter of 'america').
'then china' becomes 'pal' (china plate is Cockney rhyming slang for mate. I am not sure about the 'then' bit.).
'gets' is an insertion indicator (gets can mean captures or absorbs).
'limited' means to remove the last letter.
'approval' becomes 'praise' (praise is a kind of approval).
'praise' with its final letter taken off is 'prais'.
'pal' enclosing 'prais' is 'ppraisal'.
'a'+'ppraisal'='APPRAISAL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for appraisal that I've seen before include "judgment" , "valuation" , "Evaluation - price survey" , "rating" , "judgement" .)