No expert disclaimer, but glancing at the code in phone.module v.6.x-2.18 (no devs here?) I think we got a bug in the hook_field_settings, case 'database columns'. This may cause trouble for folk that pick chinese phones, as it would seem that there is no entry for "cn", but duplicates for Chile (see line 190ish):

       || $field['type'] == 'cl_phone'
       || $field['type'] == 'cl_phone'

Also, I think there is a duplicate for the db field for Panama line 176

       || $field['type'] == 'pa_phone'
       || $field['type'] == 'pa_phone'

Will try to send a patch, not sure is worthy, as it is easily fixable in next release -- if you are in China, just edit that line 192, change on of the chile instances "cl_phone" to "cn_phone".

Thanks for the module!
Cheers,
Inigo