I have become AI, so feel free to annex the wastelands of T'ien Ch'i at your leisure.
At least waste provinces have a higher probablilty of sites (supposedly just like swamps), and I have searched them a bunch such that I have massive gem income. Three of them even have a higher gem income than my capitol. So the provinces are not entirely worthless.
Unfortunately, I made my pretender to maximize gold income on the rich world, and that failed from starting in the wastes. Plus, I am obviously not very good with TC, which seems a very difficult nation to master. Not taking a magic scale was a huge mistake for sure.
Good luck to all players while I am out on vacation for the next couple of weeks.