Most observers expect 2016 to be a year of massive shake-up for China’s three telecoms operators, but few thought the changes would start so soon. China Unicom and China Telecom have announced a five-point strategic agreement designed to make them far more effective competitors to leader China Mobile, which has 63% market share, and 80% in 4G. It stops short of the merger some have been predicting – and is likely to put and end to those rumors for a while – but will be a far more effective way to make the world’s largest mobile market more dynamic. Rather than being pushed into a giant government-inspired merger, which would actually have given Mobile some breathing space to consolidate its…