the history of the Jesuits in China show that from an early date China was able to exchange technology from Europe. The Jesuits arrived by the late 1500s and served as a conduit of western knowledge to the Chinese court (with their advanced scientific abilities coming in handy for confucian rituals involving astronomy). obviously the 1580s (Ricci's first visit) was before Newton's principia was written but there was an established interchange between chinese and european travelers and Newton's innovations would have also found their way to China.

Now i know the French set up a technical academy in the 1860s in Fuzhou naval shipyards (and soon after a british one in Beijing).

so essentially i can demonstrably prove Newtonian physics was known and taught in china 145 years or so ago in China.

given the importance of physics in the basic groundwork of industrialization i find it hard to believe that the basic concepts wouldn't have been know about and Europeans living in China would know some physics but the best i can confirm for actual Chinese knowledge is slightly before this time period. so essentially if you want a "technically true" answer i can confidently say yes it was "at all known" but that doesn't really answer the thrust of your question.

hope this helps