Not sure, is it feature or a bug, or just misunderstanding..
But if I disable globally "show suggestions" in "text prediction" ( I don't need it for western / slavic languages ), then I'm unable to actually input chinese. My point is, chinese input can't have so called "suggestions" disabled, cause it's not suggestions, it's the input method itself.. it's pinyin..
Maybe the developer should made an exception here, or as an option under language specific section.. ?