See Ps. 73:9; I Kings 8:32; Dan. 4:23, 26; Matt. 21:25; Lk. 15:18; 20:4. Practically all African peoples associate God with the heavens, sky, or firmament in one way or another. Mbiti lists nineteen people groups who used the same word or its cognate for both God and the sky (heaven or "above"). Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa p. 130-131. What we find in China is found around the world because the same general revelation of the one true God is universal.

Herbert A. Giles, A Glossary of Reference on Subjects connected with the Far East (New Delhi: Cosmo Publications), 119-120.
Giles points out the term may mean the sky as seen overhead, but in a large number of cases the term can only be rendered intelligibly by "God." Thus throughout the Ancient classics we find terms like High Heaven ( °a ?N ), Imperial Heaven ( O ?N ), Imperial Heaven-Shang Ti ( O ?N ?W ?O ), Heaven's son ( ?N ?l ) meaning the Emperor, and other phrases like: "the fear of Heaven", "the Majesty of Heaven", "the heart, or intention of Heaven", "calamities sent from Heaven", "Heaven's minister", etc. See also James Legge, Shoo King, 292.

G. D. Wilder and J.H. Ingram, Analysis of Chinese Characters (New York: Dover, 1974) say the character is an indicative one, not a logical combination and thus it refers to the "one" sky which is over man rather than to the "one" "great" that lives in Heaven. In light of what we have learned about the universal morpheme Ti (Di), referring to Deity in some way, it would seem it is much more accurate to understand this character as a logical combination.

Ethel R. Nelson and Richard E. Broadberry, Genesis and the Mystery Confucius Couldn't Solve (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, revised 1994), 34-36.
In this research many of the original forms of the Chinese characters are discussed from the ancient bronzes and oracle bone inscriptions. This research supports the fact that ancient China knew a lot about the one true God of Heaven and His creation of humankind.

The Emperor Kang-hsi, (1661 - 1722 A.D.) one of China's greatest emperors, helps settle the dispute of whether or not "Heaven" refers to the one true God. We quote him here, "When sacrifices were offered to Heaven it was not the blue existent sky that was addressed, but the Lord and Creator of all things. If the ruler Shang Ti was sometimes called heaven (T'ien), that had no more significance than giving honorific names to the Emperor. The Catholic Bishop Maigrot told me that Heaven is a material thing and should not be worshipped, and that one should invoke only the name 'Lord of Heaven' to show the proper reverence. Maigrot wasn't merely ignorant of Chinese literature, he couldn't even recognize the simplest Chinese characters; yet he chose to discuss the falsity of the Chinese moral system." Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 79-80.

A.P Cowie and A. Evison, Concise English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1986), 186, 385, 391. So the understanding of Shang Ti as "God" is very contemporary. God the Creator is the English translation for the term Shang Ti in almost all the dictionaries!

A.S Hornby and E. V Gatenby and H. Wakefield, The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, second Edition.