Letters from old man for adorable Chinese native (5)
I believe the answer is:
panda
'chinese native' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'letters from old man for' is the wordplay.
'letters' becomes 't's' (more than one T).
'from' is a deletion indicator.
'old' becomes 'past' (similar in meaning).
'man for' becomes 'nda' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'past' with 'ts' taken out is 'pa'.
'pa'+'nda'='PANDA'
'adorable' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for panda that I've seen before include "Racoon-like animal" , "Black-and-white bear" , "Large black-and-white herbivorous mammal" , "Black and white animal" , "Bearcat" .)