I'm chinese myself and I go back to Beijing every once in a while and yes the connection there generally sucks. By the looks of it, this guy is either joking or does not know what he is talking about. I draw my conclusion from these points:
1. He asked if Linux supported Windows - Now this would be a valid question if he was talking about WinEX or Lindows but I doubt he was talking about an OS emulator for that.
2. He wants to host a website on Windows XP, home edition it would seem. Who does that?
3. He doesn't seem to know anything about apache, php, or server managed.
4. Somehow even though $3/month for hosting is expensive, $1200 for cpanel is somehow affordable.
This thread overall makes absolutely no sense.
But back to the point: What are your computer specs. If your going to be hosting a website and plan on using your computer at the same time, you'd better at least have a Dual-core processor witgh 2GB of RAM. Your website may be down anytime you are playing a game or running a serious application.
Theoretically I could host my website(s) on my laptop, but that just wouldn't be smart, thats why I pay over $200/month for a dual-core dedicated server.