Xiang Ji at BusinessWeek has a good piece on "MySpace's Slow Start in China". Who would have expected anything more?

It's difficult to jumpstart an idea that is best begun more on a grassroots level. Plus, to the average Zhou in China, there are already hundreds of social networking sites targeting all sorts of demographic areas. Why should MySpace be special? The article also says:

MySpace China declines to disclose the number of registered users. However, according to a report by iResearch Consulting Group, a Shanghai-based firm specializing in the Chinese Internet sector, MySpace China forecasts the number of registered users to grow at an average of 75,000 new members per month.

Besides fake Microsoft operating systems and Intel processors on most computers in China, no foreign web entity like Yahoo, Altavista, Google, or eBay can claim anywhere near a dominance in China's networked world.