I have just purchased iPhone4S for my wife as X'mas gift, but now it has become X'mas pain!!!
I purchased the iPhone4S through one of Hong Kong mobile carrier, which is unlock, and it is fine for usage in Hong Kong. But when she brought it to China and then inserted her China Mobile SIM card, she has experienced all the problems you all have described above. She tried both cutting the ordinary SIM card to small size card and latest new micro SIM obtained from China Mobile. She can just seldomly make one call or receive one call. Most of time it is useless.
Therefore, she tried to purchase one "神州行" SIM card, i.e. Easyown SIM card, which is not requiring any registration. Interestingly it works fine with iPhone4S without any problem, for both making call, receiving call, sending SMS and receiving SMS, just like normal iPhone4.
As it looks like the problem is particularly related to IOS5.0.1 with 全球通 GoTone subscribers SIM card, now the only alternative is purchasing one "神州行" Easyone SIM card for temporary usage and then forward all calls from her existing GoTone SIM card phone number to this "神州行" Easyone SIM card phone number, and then wait until IOS5.0.2 is available for seeing if it can thorougly fix the problem.