But would that be orthodox Zoroastrianism? Whether you see my view as shallow or not, it does not matter, Zoroastrianism (orthodox version) would almost never flourish in China for reasons stated in earlier posts.
Either ways I see your point and it is interesting, however the traditional Zoroastrianism is almost impossible to make as much headway as Buddhism in China.
Shallow is probably the wrong word sorry. I wrote that at 1 in the morning when I ahold have been sleeping :L
Back on topic: the orthodox thing is actually an interesting discussion in itself. I entirely agree that Zoroastrianism wouldn't survive in is orthodox state, but a radical departure could become a religion in itself.
Going back to buddhism we also have a similar issue. The initial buddhism of India became hugely distorted as part of its travels too even if the core ideas remained.
The Lotus Sutra is arguably one of the most influential texts in religious history, being the basis for the magical cosmology including dragons, hell realms etc. beyond religious claims that Siddartha Guatama wrote it and that Nagarjuna found the texts are talking to an underwater snake people; the Lotus Sutra has nothing to do with original buddhism.
At this point we have incredibly radical departures that are (IMO) on the level of Judaism > Christianity > Islam. The pure land sect (which if memory serves me correctly was the most popular version of buddhism amongst the general population of china) rejects a lot of the practice emphasis of early buddhism with more of a focus towards worshipping and meditating on a Buddha (I want to say Ahimsa?) who through sheer love creates an afterlife for everyone who believes in them, arguably rejecting the traditional view of the importance of Enlightenment.
Zen or Chan Buddhism has further weird departures. It recognises one of its patriarchs as the early philosopher mentioned as Nagarjuna. Now whilst Nagarjuna does maintain the idea that feeling is important to understanding a rational claim, his poetry is very rationally put forward and is almost Socratic. It looks at the early buddhist texts and rationally argues emptiness being the key insight of the Buddha. Zen however is famous for taking the feeling and understanding part but generally throwing out the early buddhist texts to rely solely on practice and intuition rather than logical discourse (note this is not to say that Zen conclusions are crazy or irrational, but that it is an intuitive way of understanding greater truths).
So from a wandering man in India who preached a life of discipline to end suffering and a psychology firmly routed in a "this world" basis (beyond reincarnation); from travelling to China we have numerous ofshoots which completely change the focus and even radically depart from core aspects of Buddhism.
We still however call them buddhist. Not to sound like a hipster, but in the eastern sense you can have so much variation and understand it as the same religion. In this sense I do genuinely believe that Zoroastrianism could survive and thrive in china but not neccesarily by a western standard.
Edit: apologies for the grammar. I need to turn off autocorrect on this phone.