Depends what your friend wants, does he have a specialised area of work, does he want to live in a city, or in the country?
Not to cast too much shade on Birmingham, but it's not the first area I'd recommend.
Birmingham does have a healthy Chinese community, assuming he is ethnically Chinese but then so do all the other major cities. Like anywhere, with enough money you can find lovely places to live, places that would cost 3-5x the price in the SE but if you had a clean slate and no reason to go to a particular area then it’s true I might not personally look at urban Birmingham. Warwickshire or Worcs countryside maybe.
Barry, its in Wales. Its a fantastic town. It has good infrastructure and has a beach. Good beer and most of the people are friendly. The weather is a bit iffy but that is true of most places in the UK. Wales is much better than England. No one likes the English, half of England doesn’t like the other half. The Welsh the Scottish and the Irish don’t like any of them. I would move to Wales, except if I was English, then I would stay in England, my own half of course.
Difficult question to answer as for most people job location is a primary factor in choosing where to live. Having said that I would recommend Newcastle, it is a busy town with a vibrant nightlife, large student population, good infrastructure, lots of inward investment and a nice mix of old and new architecture. People are generally friendly and there is a significant Chinese population. It is rather cold, but the East side of UK is generally dryer than the west.
