Amid ongoing academic debates about the status of China English (CE) within global Englishes scholarship, this study examines the attitudes of 302 Chinese pre-service English teachers through a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Data were collected via a survey, semi-structured interviews with 22 participants, and analysis of open-ended responses. Quantitative findings showed that CE was widely perceived as intelligible (88.8%) but only moderately acceptable (around 60%), with syntactic features rated more positively than lexical and discourse-pragmatic ones. Qualitative analyses further revealed a “legitimacy paradox”: many participants recognized CE’s cultural value and role in reflecting local identity, yet most were reluctant to incorporate CE features into classroom practice due to institutional constraints such as standardized testing, limited codification, and perceived professional risks. These findings demonstrate how pre-service teachers’ evaluations of CE are shaped by structural ideologies in Expanding Circle contexts, underscoring the need for teacher education programs to foster critical language awareness and to develop pedagogical approaches that balance global intelligibility with local identity representation.