Making Western designed electronics products faster, cheaper and in greater quantities was a copycat game that Asian manufacturers played from the 70s onward, until it was pretty clear that they had conclusively won. Ironically, the same thing is happening again in the Web2.0 space - but with a twist.

The China Web2.0 Review blog is an interesting site to keep an eye on - if for no other reason than to marvel at the macabre speed by which hot Silicon Valley startup concepts are reverse engineered, replicated and deployed in local Chinese varieties.

The latest is Popwu which is a oriental reincarnation of the uber mobile app Twitter. MSN integration is in place, but so far no SMS support. The latter is where the action will be if they can get it to work financially - considering the huge install base of Chinese mobile users. But you can also bet that there will be a dozen Popwu clones before the year is out if it looks as though someone is going to fund or buy Twitter for big dollars.

Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but there is also a perverse fiscal logic at play. Most of the Chinese Web2.0 clones have been designed to both attract the hot VC cash that is pouring into the market, as well as prepare themselves to be digested whole by larger web entities.

So, should you be in China yourself transcribing the Techcrunch RSS feed into Beijing business plans? Maybe - but its harder than it looks. As eBay, Yahoo and Google have already discovered - the challenge for foreign entrants are the unusual dynamics of the Chinese market. The dominant web companies such as Tencent (which operates the 200m plus QQ messenger network) as well as search and portal players like Baidu, Sohu and Sina have consistently proved their ability to use their large user bases to dominate new application areas, snuffing the oxygen from pure play startups.

A billion customers, yes. But easy billions, no.