Xelatex could support Chinese with ctex + Truetype/OpenType font. you could search web for detail.
latex could support Chinese with ctex + tfm/pk font.
pdflatex need type1 font, so tfm/pk and Truetype/OpenType font doesn't work. But there are three ways to support Chinese for pdflatex
ctex + simsum.ttc
\documentclass[fontset=windows]{ctexart}
zhmetrics provide tfm file for simsun.
zhmetrics provide mapping file to map tfm back to simsun.ttf (Truetype), but not for other Chinese ttf font, see /usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/generic/zhmetrics/zhwinfonts.tex
it embedded Trutype font into pdf.
ctex + CJKutf8 + gbsn.
it embedded type1 font into pdf, you could use "pdffonts" to check.