Not necessarily true.
Baidu was popular even before Google was blocked in China. Taobao is more successful than Ebay and Amazon in China, even Ebay and Amazon have never been blocked in China.
My personal experience of buying a book from amazon.cn is much worse than from Taobao. It took Amazon a week to deliver the book to a small town in the rural area but Taobao a day.
Many successful enterprises from outside fail to succeed in China, even they are not blocked.
For businesses, understand your customers' needs is essential to the success. Sadly many of them, both from western and China failed to realise this.
The same business model or user experience might works like magic in a market but fails horribly in another.
My personal experience of buying a book from amazon.cn is much worse than from Taobao. It took Amazon a week to deliver the book to a small town in the rural area but Taobao a day.
Many successful enterprises from outside fail to succeed in China, even they are not blocked.
For businesses, understand your customers' needs is essential to the success. Sadly many of them, both from western and China failed to realise this.
The same business model or user experience might works like magic in a market but fails horribly in another.