People have been trained for
People have been trained for decades to thinking about their immediate neighbors first when talking about new markets. Physical distance does not equate economical distance. That is obvious for many services (like IT), but also for many products. I face this perception problem all the time in my work.

I like to propose a test for proving this point. Just get a quote for shipping a good to Boston (FedEx for example) and another one for shipping the same good to Beijing. The cost difference is an indication of how much "economically farther" China is. Over-simplification I know, but the difference is usually not huge. That is also pretty much the cost that applies to a Chinese company producing the same good and that wants to ship it here...

Yan