SIM Cards, Internet & the Firewall
Google, WhatsApp and Instagram do not work on a Chinese connection. International roaming or a foreign eSIM routes around the problem entirely — and is the answer for almost every visitor.
Photo: Charlie fong · CC BY-SA 4.0 · resized
The technical situation is simple once you understand it. Traffic originating on a mainland Chinese network is filtered; traffic that is routed out of the mainland before it hits the open internet is not. That single distinction determines everything about how you should connect.
What does not work on a Chinese connection
- All Google services: Search, Gmail, Maps, Drive, Photos, Play Store
- Meta: WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger
- X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, Discord, Signal, Telegram
- Most Western news sites, and a long tail of others
- Some cloud sync — Dropbox, Google Drive — and occasionally iCloud features
What does work: Apple services broadly, Microsoft and Outlook, Bing, Amazon, most banking apps, Wikipedia (intermittently), booking sites like Trip.com and Booking.com, and the entire Chinese app ecosystem.
The three options, ranked
| Option | Cost | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| International roaming on your home SIM | Varies; £6–10/day on many plans | Simplest. Traffic routes through your home carrier so everything works normally. Best if your plan has a reasonable daily cap |
| A foreign eSIM bought online | £10–25 for 1–2 weeks | The recommended choice. Airalo, Nomad, Holafly and others sell China eSIMs that route via Hong Kong or Singapore — no filtering, no VPN, installed before you fly |
| A local Chinese SIM (China Mobile/Unicom) | ¥100–200 | Cheap data and a Chinese number, but fully filtered. Useful as a second SIM for apps that demand a domestic number |
On VPNs
Commercial VPNs are widely used by residents and visitors, and their legal status is best described as ambiguous rather than clearly prohibited for personal use — enforcement targets providers rather than tourists. The practical problem is reliability: VPN protocols are actively disrupted, performance degrades badly at politically sensitive moments, and you cannot download or install one once you are inside the country because the provider's site and app-store listing are blocked.
If you want one, install and test it at home. Do not rely on it as your only route to the outside internet — an eSIM is more dependable and considerably less hassle.
Set up before you fly
- Offline mapsDownload the regions you will visit in Maps.me or Organic Maps, and Google Maps offline areas as backup. Apple Maps works in China but with Chinese-sourced data and offset coordinates.
- TranslationGoogle Translate with the Chinese pack downloaded for offline camera translation — it works offline even though the online service is blocked. Add Baidu Translate or Pleco as a backup.
- Payment appsAlipay and WeChat, verified and card-bound. See the payments guide.
- BookingsTrip.com for trains and hotels; Didi (or Didi inside Alipay) for taxis.
- CopiesPassport photo, visa or entry confirmation, hotel addresses in Chinese characters, saved offline.
Wi-Fi in practice
Hotel, café and airport Wi-Fi is ubiquitous and fast, and almost all of it is filtered. Public networks routinely require a Chinese mobile number to receive an SMS code, which is one practical argument for carrying a local SIM as a second line. Hotel Wi-Fi normally just works with a room number.
→Next guide
High-Speed Rail & Getting Around
48,000 km of high-speed rail at up to 350 km/h. For any journey under about five hours it beats flying, and your passport is the ticket.