Designing a website from scratch can be quite a task depending on the scale of your site and what kind of complex features you’ll have behind it (server-side scripting, etc.). You may have to upload a lot of files at the end of the day, especially if you are going to use some local server-side scripts to generate content pages. Nothing is more annoying and detrimental to a web-based endeavor than having a slow or unreliable connection. The Chinese Internet is notorious for being restricted, unreliable, and slow, especially when it comes to viewing foreign websites or interacting with servers outside the Chinese firewall.
It is very difficult for Chinese startups that are also heavily involved with the Internet, such as web design agencies or Chinese SEO companies. Government restrictions prevent any business growth online and oppress many companies that want to work with clients or businesses outside of China. Foreign companies operating in China have it even worse, because many of their operations will involve interaction with entities outside of China. A good example is that a UK branch in China will need to communicate with their headquarters on a regular basis. If the data center is outside of China, this significantly slows down business and frustrates both staff and customers.
When you are going to spend some time in China and do a lot of web design or blogging, make sure you are well prepared! Before you go, buy some remote storage from a company that has servers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is just outside the great firewall of China, so it has a very fast connection to the rest of the world and a reasonable connection to China. You’ll get much better performance this way instead of connecting to a UK server from China. You also risk China blocking your blog, website, and any remote ftp hosting services you use. This means access it will be impossible from anywhere in China, no matter which computer you try to use. So this means you have something else to add to your shopping list, and that is a VPN or a proxy. Don’t bother with the free ones if you want reliability. They are cheap and you can get a monthly subscription to match the time you are visiting.
The adverse effect of traveling to China and not realizing the internet restrictions there can seriously affect your freelance work, blog or website. Going away for a month and not having access to these could cripple your income or your business. Remember to be well prepared and have everything set up correctly before you go to avoid unpleasant surprises!