Anyway, yeah, it's funny how often you meet experts on Chinese business who haven't actually done business in China but can go into elaborate detail about why it's a bad idea. I met lots of Western entrepreneurs out there - there are tons of foreigners running bars, restaurants, outsourcing firms , language schools, etc without much hassle from the government. You can even get around the minority ownership rule by incorporating in HK, or at least you used to be able to. I wouldn't start a big internet company out there, or a factory, but small companies in certain sectors seem to get left alone. It's probably more anarchic than the West, actually, which was one reason I liked it out there, though I've never seen myself settling there long term.