When you are not open about letting people into your market; it is not easy to get out of that market either. i have lived in china for 3 years so i would be cheating to answer this question.

In general, i find the chinese web applications to be a viable alternative to many non-chinese web apps (weibo.com, games...) my new favorite is wechat.com made by tencent.com. it is the best mobile communicator that has been developed.