"I wouldn't start a big internet company out there"

We're not talking about bars and restaurants.

Small internet companies in Silicon Valley all want to be big internet companies. To do that they need investment, ownership, freedom to transact contracts and appoint employees at will. You can set up a small startup in somebody's garage anywhere in the USA, but you are unlikely to scale to a billion dollar company. Few get to be unicorns, but those that do drive the cycle for everybody. They're enabled at the early stage by having near-zero regulatory compliance requirements, and nearly zero people that they have to convince that they have a genuinely good idea. This is not the way business is done by foreigners in mainland China.