[thijsterlouw]

I live in Shenzhen and work in the IT myself (Tencent/QQ), but I cannot fully recommend it for startups: 1. GFW, you absolutely NEED a VPN to get access to Facebook, Twitter many blogs, YouTube etc etc 2. There are very very few Western IT people in the city. There is no community with meetings etc. 3. Though more and more people speak English, many people speak still very little English. Especially all official documents, all practical matters... all in Chinese 4. House prices are very very expensive, offices also. You say rents are cheap,... not really. Perhaps compared to Western cities, but even then the gap is narrowing quickly.

On the plus side: - many Chinese study Computer Science and there are many very bright young students eager for a job. - salaries are still relatively low (though higher than you perhaps would expect) - weather ain't bad if you can stand the summer heat :) - food is cheap, I eat in restaurants every day. - Shenzhen tries to focus on innovation and high-tech, I think you can apply for some subsidies