The status of the dragon in China should not even have been debated over about. When one thinks of Chinese dragons, it's this wondrous creature of power and wealth. Maybe it's how I am brought up, being able to tell the difference between western and eastern dragons. But symbolically, the Chinese dragon has an aura that can also be paired with the phoneix (normally together for a couple who is getting married). But as the article shows, that many Chinese would have the word dragon (龍), which is pronounced "loong" in Cantonese. It's always been cool to have 龍 as part of your name (too many movies, I think. >-<) Asian comic depictions of eastern dragons help this image of power.
And my fav dragon are the ones in Dragonball.