Name adopted by red China strangely becomes an obstacle (9)
I believe the answer is:
hindrance
'an obstacle' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'name adopted by red china strangely' is the wordplay.
'name' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation e.g. on forms).
'adopted by' means one lot of letters goes inside another (I've seen this in other clues).
'strangely' indicates an anagram.
'red'+'china'='redchina'
'redchina' with letters rearranged gives 'hindrace'.
'n' inserted within 'hindrace' is 'HINDRANCE'.
'becomes' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hindrance that I've seen before include "Obstacle" , "Impediment" , "Let" , "barrier" , "Something that holds back" .)