Incorporating in China

I just incorporated in the US. I sent in my $165 with my application, incorporated, got a business license and a tax-ID and that was it. I had a business entity to conduct my own consulting business. It's not so simple in China. If you want to start a strictly chinese based business, you need to apply for a business license, register with the state and register a certain amount of funding with it. This means you actually have to put up money into an account that the government has control over for a while, after the approval of your business license, you get that money back, into your own account. The amount that is required for your business license depends on the industry and the type of services your business will provide. I know of a small 3 person consulting company who put up 300,000 RMB for their funding. Certain businesses like real estate brokerages (same as the US) need specific additional licenses. These are the regulated industries. Doesn't sound too bad right, except that whether or not the government agencies are still issuing new licenses for specific industries is not really public information, the process takes at least 1-2 months just for applying and not counting actual paperwork preparation, and unless you have the connections to find out, they may not be issuing anymore licenses for your type of business. For example, in Shanghai when I last checked, they're not issuing anymore new licenses for real estate brokerages. We got lucky that we knew someone who wasn't going to use theirs anymore. And for a brokerage license to be fully approved, you have to have at least 5 agents, at least you have to pay monthly fees to the government for 5 agents. There are other industries that are in operation that have also stopped issuing licenses for their type of business, but this was done as a preparation of deregulating the industry. Example, immigration services. However, you're currently in the state of not being able to get new licenses, but the industry's not deregulated and so you actually still need a license to operate until whenever that no one but the government knows. Oh, and did I mention that these business license are registered with the state police department and they do yearly inspections. Exactly what that entails I'm not sure, I'm just happy to have my very well connected Chinese counterparts handle it.
So if you want to start a small business in China (the rules are obviously much different if you're a big corporation with lots of moola and actual international brand equity), decide exactly where and what type of business. Go there and find someone you can trust who has the same type of business, then you can find out the exact requirements and how much funding you need to put up, process, paperwork, etc... Of course I know a small consulting company in Shanghai who can do this if you really don't know where to start. As for creating a branch of a US company in China, you need to maintain a class A office space, with address and actual operations out of there, funding money and a process that registers you with the police department etc... or you can do it as a WOFE (wholly owned foreign entity), but the details of that is really beyond my expertise.