I know that many foreigners would like to make some business in China and I know that often can hear/read suggestions about finding Chinese (Chinese citizens) partners. And this afternoon I met this valuable (from my point of view) opinion:
China Law Blog Says:
April 5th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Nearly everything you say on here is wrong. There is no good way to start a company with a Chinese partner without it being a joint venture. If you are going to sell to China from within China, you almost certainly do need a WFOE. It is almost always easier to have that WFOE owned by a foreign company (though it is possible to have it owned by you individually), but that foreign company certainly not need be from HK; in fact most of the time for our American clients it makes sense to form a US LLC to own the Chinese WFOE.
I can tell a million horror stories of foreigners who tried to save money by having a Chinese “partner” start their business for them in China as a domestic company owned by the Chinese partner “on behalf of the foreigner.” Worst case scenario is that the Chinese partner runs away with the company as soon as it gets profitable.http://www.chinasuccessstories.com/2008/04/04/foreigner-start-company-china/