I'm waiting to borrow an HD scanner from a friend but in the meantime is there anyone I should contact who may be interested in them? They've lived in an attic for more than a decade and I don't have the digital restoration skills necessary to do them justice.
I would reach out to a local university, historical society, or library/archive. Even a normal local library would be able to help you. They're mostly closed now, I assume, but I'm sure they would respond to emails. For example, if I had such a trove of images, I would probably email the Wisconsin Historical Society or one of the university libraries in my town.
You can probably even reach out to the Chinese government. National Cultural Heritage Administration is a national organization to curate Chinese historical artifacts. They might be interested in your old photos too.
http://www.ncha.gov.cn/col/col1682/index.html
is their contact page, the bottom number is Fax. Pretty sure if you fax over an letter in English explaining the situation someone will get back to you.