Hangs around a high-sounding place in China (8)
I believe the answer is:
shanghai
'in china' is the definition.
('Shanghai' is part of 'china')
'hangs around a high-sounding place' is the wordplay.
'around' indicates anagramming the letters.
'sounding' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'place' indicates an anagram (I've seen 'placed' mean this (placing the letters)).
'high' sounds like 'hi'.
'hangs' with letters rearranged gives 'shang'.
'a'+'hi'='ahi'
'ahi' anagrammed gives 'hai'.
'shang'+'hai'='SHANGHAI'
(Other definitions for shanghai that I've seen before include "'What shall we do with a drunken sailor?'" , "Abduct to serve as a sailor" , "Darts player might be pleased with this" , "Trick into naval service" , "Exhibit haircut on sailor's head in" .)