In fact, it is uncommon to use a third-person pronoun to refer to a non-human entity in Chinese. The default manner in referring to such an entity is either to repeat the noun representing it or to add a Chinese determiner (or demonstrative), such as 那 (n`a/ that) or 這 (zh`e/ this). Thus, 那 (n`a m¯ao貓) refers to “that cat” or 這貓 (zh`e m¯ao) refers to “this cat.”
Reference: Chinese: a linguistic introduction by Chao Fen Sun
