If you're thinking of buying a Chinese bike take a look at my thread from 2012
here. It had 7500 miles on it and was less than two years old.
Don't buy an import which is hard to find bits for. Get something cheap, common and reliable. Unfortunately this will pretty much limit you to really boring things and 125s but needs must.
You could pick up a nice YBR or CG for £1000, boring but it won't go wrong, will get you from A to B and when you come to sell it in a year or two you'll get back what you paid for it provided it's not been smashed up
If I was in that situation I'd go for something like a 600 Diversion, a GPZ500 or even a Deuville if you can get one for a grand. Will go on forever and not be horrible to do distances on like a 125.