Guangzhou now has a fast track permanent residence setup for foreigners investing or working. Shenzhen is about to echo it. Sounds like Fuzhou has as well. I have friends with Chinese green cards in Yunnan and Beijing, too.

Sounds like Beijing is finally taking the back foot to provincial and local authorities on visa policy.

I've long considered myself a vanguard economic migrant of the grandparent's brain drain. It's just impossible to have an independent career in R&D in much of the west and have any sort of economic security, much less start multiple businesses. My native Sydney is a particularly bad case.