diff --git a/spacy/lang/zh/__init__.py b/spacy/lang/zh/__init__.py
index 752f77d11..457502e21 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/zh/__init__.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/zh/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from typing import Optional, List, Dict, Any
+from typing import Optional, List, Dict, Any, Callable, Iterable
 from enum import Enum
 import tempfile
 import srsly
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from ...errors import Warnings, Errors
 from ...language import Language
 from ...scorer import Scorer
 from ...tokens import Doc
-from ...training import validate_examples
+from ...training import validate_examples, Example
 from ...util import DummyTokenizer, registry
 from .lex_attrs import LEX_ATTRS
 from .stop_words import STOP_WORDS
@@ -28,6 +28,10 @@ DEFAULT_CONFIG = """
 [nlp.tokenizer]
 @tokenizers = "spacy.zh.ChineseTokenizer"
 segmenter = "char"
+
+[initialize]
+
+[initialize.tokenizer]
 pkuseg_model = null
 pkuseg_user_dict = "default"
 """
@@ -44,18 +48,9 @@ class Segmenter(str, Enum):
 
 
 @registry.tokenizers("spacy.zh.ChineseTokenizer")
-def create_chinese_tokenizer(
-    segmenter: Segmenter = Segmenter.char,
-    pkuseg_model: Optional[str] = None,
-    pkuseg_user_dict: Optional[str] = "default",
-):
+def create_chinese_tokenizer(segmenter: Segmenter = Segmenter.char,):
     def chinese_tokenizer_factory(nlp):
-        return ChineseTokenizer(
-            nlp,
-            segmenter=segmenter,
-            pkuseg_model=pkuseg_model,
-            pkuseg_user_dict=pkuseg_user_dict,
-        )
+        return ChineseTokenizer(nlp, segmenter=segmenter)
 
     return chinese_tokenizer_factory
 
@@ -78,6 +73,18 @@ class ChineseTokenizer(DummyTokenizer):
         self.jieba_seg = None
         self.configure_segmenter(segmenter)
 
+    def initialize(
+        self,
+        get_examples: Callable[[], Iterable[Example]],
+        *,
+        nlp: Optional[Language],
+        pkuseg_model: Optional[str] = None,
+        pkuseg_user_dict: Optional[str] = None
+    ):
+        self.pkuseg_model = pkuseg_model
+        self.pkuseg_user_dict = pkuseg_user_dict
+        self.configure_segmenter(self.segmenter)
+
     def configure_segmenter(self, segmenter: str):
         if segmenter not in Segmenter.values():
             warn_msg = Warnings.W103.format(
diff --git a/spacy/tests/conftest.py b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
index 23fc5e98f..6cf019173 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
@@ -284,11 +284,16 @@ def zh_tokenizer_pkuseg():
     pytest.importorskip("pkuseg")
     pytest.importorskip("pickle5")
     config = {
-        "@tokenizers": "spacy.zh.ChineseTokenizer",
-        "segmenter": "pkuseg",
-        "pkuseg_model": "default",
+        "nlp": {
+            "tokenizer": {
+                "@tokenizers": "spacy.zh.ChineseTokenizer",
+                "segmenter": "pkuseg",
+            }
+        },
+        "initialize": {"tokenizer": {"pkuseg_model": "default"}},
     }
-    nlp = get_lang_class("zh").from_config({"nlp": {"tokenizer": config}})
+    nlp = get_lang_class("zh").from_config(config)
+    nlp.initialize()
     return nlp.tokenizer