Some of them had probably expected that the laissez-faire attitude of the Chinese authorities that was noticeable up to the mid-2000s would continue indefinitely, but that turned out to be a bad bet. Once the Chinese authorities started to become more serious about things like environmental regulations or higher salaries (both these things mentioned in the article like something bad ?!) then many “napkin” business-plans turned to nothing. I really cannot feel any empathy for this type of investors.