The thing going against Deakins winning is that Bladerunner 2049 is not nominated in the important categories like BP and BD. Film editing and cinematography are tied with BD and BP.
Star Wars to Chinese audience is just another sci-fi film that is poorly written with lame action scenes. They don't have any cultural connection to the Star Wars mythology, so when Han Solo and Leia show up in the TFA they have no clue who these old weirdos are and are not given any background information. The force seems very stupid to them too when I read the netizen comments.