iPad fans will remark all day long that Android is a failure because there are no truly successful 10" tablets that compare to iPads. 7" tablets are casually dismissed as not being useful. This will all change of course once Apple releases a smaller form factor tablet at which time all the Apple fans will declare that finally a true 7" tablet has been released.

I lived in Beijing for 4 years and to be honest it's not going to be super easy to land an IT job as there are plenty of qualified local chinese engineers for most any task and they are going to be cheaper than you. That being said if you are somewhat lucky you might find a good gig.

Look for IT listings on the websites of the local monthly english language magazines:

http://www.thebeijinger.com/
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing

Go to the local user group meetings and network such as the Beijing Linux user group:

http://www.clubbeautiful.com/ (strange domain I know)

These guys have been around a long time and do outsourcing work for large european companies mostly:

http://www.exoweb.net/en

These guys provide local hosting services and may possibly an avenue:

http://www.candisgroup.com/

From that same Wikipedia article:

"Mao Zedong encouraged population growth and China's population almost doubled from around 550 to over 900 million during the period of his leadership."

I lived in China for several years and it's common knowledge that the one child policy is in part a reaction to the earlier policies that encouraged population growth under Mao's reign.

You're absolutely right there are major inefficiencies in China's economy. I live in Beijing and as the original poster said business come and go with alarming frequency usually due to not having any idea at all what kind of business is likely to succeed in a given place. The other very common mistake is to cluster businesses in one area. While it might be nice for the consumer to have the choice between 5 cafes in one apartment complex / street block, it makes no sense for the business owners to have to face 4 direct competitors rather than zero.

Once China's 'catch-up' growth starts to slow -and it most certainly will at some point- then you will see a lot of people start to realize just how much the typical business owner has to learn about business...