There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s just closed.
That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because of the actions of a government, particularly one that was not elected by those citizens.
As the announcement mentions, Qi Lu continues to be active in the VC space with a new company, MiraclePlus, which calls itself "formerly YC China" on their website: https://www.miracleplus.com/
Presumably he calls it that because he’s using the same business strategy/model he was building for YC. But it seems quite clear that it’s not YC. The new entity is a standalone VC fund [1], and YC is a recipient of LP funds, not an LP in other VC funds. And besides, it would be hard for YC to keep any involvement quiet after making this kind of announcement.
https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-china/
There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s just closed.
That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because of the actions of a government, particularly one that was not elected by those citizens.
But that’s moot now. YC China has been closed.