Hello,
I have traveled to China many times before the pandemic and always used a VPN. I am wondering now, is it illegal to use a VPN and if you get caught what is the punishment? I don’t know that I will need one and I am happy to comply with the law since I am only there for work for a few days but thought I would ask.
Thanks!
It’s always been illegal. But like any other Chinese laws, it is just if they choose to enforce it or not.
The chances of a tourist getting in trouble for having a vpn is so close to being zero it may as well be negative.
Every single resident foreigner here has one, as well as half the local population in a city like Shanghai.
Additionally, if you just enable roaming you won’t need one anyway.
It’s always been illegal but nobody will do jack shit… just don’t talk about it in front of English speaking authorities and you’ll be fine
In China using a VPN as I type this comment
The chances of someone giving a fuck are like 0.0001%
All I can share is that I’ve been using VPN for 10+years before moving to another country. It was never a problem for me.
Here’s the thing about China: there are a multitude of laws, written in such a way so that no human can unambiguously not be breaking the law. Every man, woman, and child, citizen or foreigner, is always breaking a law. This is by design; if everyone is guilty of something, the party can haul you off whenever it pleases them. The law is not to serve the people, it’s a club that the government can use to beat you over the head with.
That said, this also means you can ignore laws entirely if you conclude you’re too important for them to harass you, or it’s otherwise not worth the trouble of coming down on you. If someone with pull would raise a fuss over your arrest, you could probably commit some fairly big felonies and be fine. (The opposite is also true: if someone big dislikes you, you might be locked up even if you did your best to follow every law.)
So what to do? Get a VPN, every foreigner has one, if word got out that you couldn’t get foreign internet, it would cause issues for the CCP that they don’t want to deal with. Don’t piss off border agents, cops, or other people that might enjoy taking an uppity foreigner down a peg. Don’t steal from Mom and Pop shops, they might know someone. (On the other hand, Carrefour is fair game, just pretend you were going to pay later, and don’t admit to speaking Chinese, and hapless assistant manager will send you away rather than lose face for not speaking enough English to interrogate.) Basically, just ignore most stupid laws, and play dumb If caught. Worst that can happen is you’re told to stop.
PS: I would never steal from Carrefour. But that’s because I consider it morally wrong, not because I fear getting caught.
PPS: Except for drug laws. They take that shit seriously, don’t fuck around with that.
Hi! Just got back from China. It’s illegal to use a VPN. This law is not enforced. China has recently been cracking down on VPNs so it’s hard to find one that works
My recommendation is to use a telco in your home country and utilise their international roaming service when in China. Roaming traffic is tunnelled to your home telco.
AFAIK, the Chinese telcos (usually China Mobile) do not censor the traffic at all.
Two further points are that you can buy a roaming eSIM from many telcos (thus no foreign SIM card that is easily removable by aggressive Chinese officials), and secondly you can easily hotspot your mobile to provide connectivity on your laptop.
It has always been illegal, and the charge is called “illegal use of the internet channel.” Typically, it results in a few days of detention and a fine. The more serious offense is providing VPN services. I just got out of prison, sentenced to three and a half years, with the charge of “providing tools for intrusion and illegal control of computer information systems.” However, they usually don’t arrest foreigners.
I’ve literally closed my VPN in front of police to show them information on my phone that loads too slowly with a VPN (like a Health code app during Covid for example) and they didn’t bat an eye.
Stop reading scaremongering media and you’ll be alright
Those that I knew used VPN, never lived to tell me if it worked, last message I got from them was “it works!”.
Anyway, I travel to China every year (except covid years), I noticed their VPN crackdown gets more sophisticated over the years.
The only free VPN that worked for me was PPTP connection back to my home internet but I had to take care there’s no other devices connected on my home network as once connected I noticed a sudden flood of attempts to my IP address.
Nowadays I will just get a roaming package.
You have to wonder how all those government officials post on YouTube, FB and X…
It is technically illegal but every foreigner uses one without worrying about getting caught and punished. You’ll be fine.
If I were to go for a short visit, I would aim to already have the VPN software installed and ready to go. If it doesn’t work, I would not replace it.
Most websites aren’t blocked on data roaming to begin with
Nothing, you are a foreigner.
I think it has always been illegal but no one really gives a shit. The chance of you getting a punishment for using a vpn is almost 0.
As long as you are a foreigner, this kind of law or regulation means nothing. They are for CN citizens ONLY.
It’s illegal and always has been, but will only be enforced if they want to go after you for some other reason.