my friend went there and opened one a few years ago. it's relatively easy to open one I was told
but it's super painful to close that, even though it's a small startup and financially clean, still do not know how he could ever close that, many procedures, paperwork, financial check everything he could not supply as a small player,etc. it's just impossible to close i guess.
basically it looks to me that it's a easy-in-hard-out process.
As an American that has 100% ownership in two China legal enterprises, not sure where some items in your bullet list are coming from. Yes, there are unique difficulties. No, communist hard-liners are not setting over my shoulder plotting to take my business without a trial.
That's only if your company is a Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE), which come with its own special set of deliberately roadblocks which are not there if a Chinese partner is involved.
Likely the allure of so many potential customers that are otherwise inaccessible. (I'm not saying this is a valid reason to ignore the above, but potentially why some might.)
> - requires you to give up 50% to a local partner
Chinese people. Don't worry, there's plenty. And they do not have subpar education, nor do they have less intellectual capacity (hell, most studies seem to conclude they have -just a little- more, on average).
> - blocks internet access to foreign websites (thus foreign customers)
I think you'll find that inbound commerce (or outbound commerce) is not all that restricted. Some movies, yes. And newspapers (do they still exist ?). That's about it. Other than that, it's not more restricted than in the west (ie. large amounts expenditures require government/irs/... approval one way or the other).
> - can take away your business/assets/customers without trials
It's not like Japan did it for 30 years before that ... By the way ... how did the US get started on it's industrial base ? Could it have been copying ?
> - treats foreigners as a mere entity to steal technology and clients from?
Again, one wonders how Europeans think about America in this area. Yep, similarly.
you seem to be wanting to argue about something which I did not even bring up. internet is not a place you start arguing with yourself.
> it's not more restricted than in the west
Yeah....you keep telling yourself that. I don't think you've actually been to China where foreigners struggles to hit youtube/facebook/google using a variety of VPN tools every day
I think I'll stop...there's too much cognitive dissonance here
It's unfortunate you're being downvoted. I highly recommend the book, Bad Samaritans [1] as it shows that all developed countries followed a similar pattern of IP theft and protectionism.
Sidenote: Jeff Tucker mentioned how the US in the 1800s enforced American authors' IP, but not British. So school teachers ended up using the cheaper British authored books instead of the Americans. Leading to more British authors becoming famous in the US.
but it's super painful to close that, even though it's a small startup and financially clean, still do not know how he could ever close that, many procedures, paperwork, financial check everything he could not supply as a small player,etc. it's just impossible to close i guess.
basically it looks to me that it's a easy-in-hard-out process.