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The map really brings into light Japan's lack of presence in the tech world.. They barely register on the map.

I'm surprised India has more presence than China considering how much the news talks about places like Shenzhen.

Chinese is in general not as fluent in English as people in India (English is one of its official languages) or other European countries (easily multilingual). For most educated Chinese who don't have overseas experience, reading is probably okay, but speaking / listening is challenging -- we are trained to take exams growing up (e.g., doing multiple choices on paper).

If you can't pitch in fluent English and you can't hire someone to help you (due to the resource constraint of your early stage startup), how can you be properly evaluated by YC or other Silicon Valley VC firms?

Another possible reason may be easy to access local capital in China.

Innovation Works with Kaifu Lee (the guy who used to run google china) is like a Chinese YC. The Chinese market is also very inward facing at this point due to protectionism and the GFW.

I'm sure a lot of founders are still Chinese, just that they are coming from the USA (or other countries) before applying to YC.

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