“The Chinese evolved from Indians”
More like the Chinese, Japanese, etc. all derive from the same source. It’s something else to say they’re all “Indians”.
The "earlier" thesis that was put to rest quite some time ago was that India, SE Asia, New Guinea and Australia had been settled by a group that didn't go anywhere else.
Obviously that story was in error if they show up in Northern and Eastern Asia.
The accepted view has been that humans known as the San came up from South Africa to the African/Asian litoral and migrated on around to India, and from there to Sundaland, to Australia, et al, some 75,000 years ago. Some of them moved North to Central Asia North of the Himalayan Ice Cap during a lengthy interstadial about 50,000 years ago.
An interstadial is a warm period of less than 10,000 years that occurs during a period of major glaciation. An interstadial can affect the entire globe, or a major portion.
The Western branch of the Euro/Chinese group began dividing into the Sa'ami and the non-Sa'ami parts about 15,000 years ago just as The Big Ice was melting away. The Eastern branch of the Chinese/Euro group began dividing into two groups at about the same time. The smaller of the two groups have molars with 5 roots (other humans have 4 roots). This makes it possible to differentiate between the two groups in archaeological digs.
Today we usually think of major differences between populations in terms of color, culture and language. At the same time thanks to DNA analysis we can dispense with the element of "color" and discuss them in terms of DNA markers. 5 roots on your teeth is a pretty good one, but there are others which taken in combination can reveal primary ancestral backgrounds of the four groups who were originally a single group that left the shores of the Arabian gulf and moved North to Central Asia.
And then came the American Indians. Maybe the name “Indian” is appropriate, after all?