I just ordered a couple of iPad Airs (actually 2 shipments, one 32GB and one 64GB) and both were shipped from Shenzen CN. Are they doing refurbs overseas now, or has that always been the case and my previous orders just happened to come from local warehouses?
It all depends on the popularity of the item. I have ordered 3 items in the past from Apple's refurbed site (well, 2, the 3rd was a present). One was a MacBook Pro (13" 2009) and that came from China. The other 2 were iPads, a first gen 16GB and 64GB iPad 2 white, both Wi-Fi. They came from Elk Grove, CA where Apple does the higher end CTOs and some refurbishment IIRC. Both were remanufactured in China, however they were sent to the US for distribution.
This might actually be a blessing in disguise; my iPad 2 had been sitting on Apple's shelf for about a year before being sent to me. It should have come with iOS 5 so I could set it up out of the box, so imagine my surprise when I opened it up and turned it on to a "Connect to iTunes" logo. It had iOS 4 installed. It also had horrible light leakage like the early models as well. Yours shipping straight from China means that they probably just rolled off the refurbishment line, unlike my iPads so it should have no problems.
That iPad was really the only issue I ever had Apple's refurbished products. That MacBook Pro was damaged internally by Apple Service people (won't go into details here) and was later replaced by a 2010 model.