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by joss82 5452 days ago
You may be dreaming, but you're not the only one.

What would be the hurdles to get a startup running in China? The Great Firewall?

It's a big country so it's always possible to find a place that fits your personal taste. For example Sanya is a tropical island. Not much infrastructure there yet though.

4 comments

Hurdles?

1) Language, especially when getting stuff like visas, work permits, incorporation, etc. You can stay on non-work (or business) visas, but it's not terribly legal.

As for the English standard, imagine you have a country with 1 point something billion people, and speaking English was discouraged until about 20 years ago (except if you were in intelligence). How do you teach it? Only young people tend to be fluent. Most English teachers have never left the country, or had much one-on-one interaction with people who can speak good English. Students are great at certain elements of formal written grammar, if it's in an exam setting. Vocabulary can be OK. But fluency can be a problem.

2) Red tape. It's non-existant for the old woman selling wonton soup by the side of the street (as long as she can run faster than the local city management, or can afford to give them lots of free soup), but not likely to be fun for foreign businesses.

3) Talent. I'm sure it's there, but you won't know how to find it. You can't tell if people are bright, unless you can communicated easily. Also,expect programmers with great geometry, good algorithms, and no idea how to work in a team; kinda like most countries, really.

4) Honesty. Chinese believe that "actions speak louder than words". If you don't understand this, and you won't, you won't understand why everyone is telling white lies to you. People may explain this as "face" related, or "high context communication", but to some people it looks very dishonest.

So, except for point 2, it's a matter of learning the language and culture thoroughly.
As a foreigner you are not allowed to own a business in China. You must start a special "joint venture" company with a native Chinese partner, with something like $15-20k USD in a chinese bank. Expect to be screwed by your Chinese partner, the bank, the local government, your local vendors, your landlord, etc.
Great Firewall? Use a VPN, easy. (I'm doing it for many years).

Sanya is not an island, its a city on the island of Hainan.

Infrastructure in China is very good, especially train lines.

What is corruption like in China? IMHO, that would likely be the largest hurdle to starting a business outside the US.