What's the visa situation like? Can you get a visa to stay there for 6 months or more? What I'm seeing online is that it is a large amount of red tape, requiring a local business, for instance, to sponsor you. Which is probably pretty hard to do if you're not their employee.

Would appreciate a specific link or name for the visa you're using and how you went about getting it...

I'm reading your blog post and you talk about the level of regulation in germany... but my impression is that in china it is worse, and further it is impenetrable. Of course, I've never been to china.

Actually, it is likely we will domicile our business in another country. What we're looking for is a location where costs are low and the spirit is high and where the infrastructure we need -- namely a good connection to the internet-- is available.

I'm glad to hear that renting is easy. I would have assumed that foreigners were unusual and thus it would be hard to find someone interested in renting to one.

It sounds like my preconceived notions about mainland china are wrong. Thanks!