In the tier-1 cities most people, especially younger, can manage a few words in English (although many are very accented and may be hard to understand) and all public transportation and facilities will have English translation accompanied.

Outside of those, English REALLY isn't a lingua franca here, people will not even be able to guess what you're trying to convey in English. Also, many of the wordless assumptions behind design, procedures, and how things work that many travelers can rely on in countries with more Western influence are also different, which can be challenging.

Massive upsides: everyone is comfortable if you use translation apps or devices to communicate; people are friendly and approachable and pretty social culture-wise, and will go out of their way to help you. It's also extremely safe everywhere, well organized, easy to travel to wherever you care to go, and everything is accessible digitally (although sadly you'd have to be able to read Chinese for most of apps and websites, but it'll be easy for other ppl to help you out by just pulling out their own phones to do xyz).

So yes, you absolutely can go as a tourist without knowing the language ;D