@devages, I signed up in Steemit to reply your post.

(It's 2018-01-09, NEO is trading around 100 USD per coin.)

Indeed, if one replaces 'Ethereum of China' by 'iPhone of China', how would the world take it?

The Antshare/NEO project reminds many another Chinese 'patriotic Linux project' two decades ago: The Redflag Linux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux), which failed in silence. The idea of open and free operating system is in direct conflict with the totalitarian application of the 'Redflag Linux': information surveillance of the general public.

History repeats itself. Now another open source project hits the world in wake of the 2008 financial crisis caused by the over-centralised financial institutions and the oversupply of fiat currencies backed by overpowered central governments, yet Antshare/NEO came along selling itself as a 'well-connected' (to the most over powered government at all time) company that will apply the blockchain tech to help a totalitarian regime to even further its control over its people's MIND.

The irony is not that NEO had the audacity to propose such an intention, but the fact that the world's investors have bought it at 100 USD a piece, while many of them condemn Ripple's betrayal of the blockchain principle.

I have watched this video (by Da Hongfei) carefully. He very briefly mentioned the 'first' real project by Onchain was for the Guiyang government, while omitting the project purpose: a citizen 'credibility' evaluation system supported by the blockchain and machine learning. In other word, Onchain was part of the infamous '7 minutes reaction time' video of the mass surveillance system widely reported by the Western media: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-china-42248056/in-your-face-china-s-all-seeing-state. The city name is exactly Guiyang, which incidentally is also Apple's chosen site for its Chinese data centre.

Just how mad can our species become for a quick buck?