Yes the ntp details gets written to ntp.conf
and in regards to time zone below is a example of what i think
rm -rf /etc/localtime
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc/localtime
This should set the time zone to Asia/Shanghai
List of available timezones is here /usr/share/zoneinfo
Well all that being said the question is why do you want to make the changes directly rather than through config menu, its just few steps through it.