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Looking for a VPS with good internet connectivity in China
My budget:
around $90 / year.
Requirements:
Ability to browse forums, load web page attachments and videos, and stream YouTube in 1080p without lag.
Requires 2 TB or more of network traffic.
Current situation:
I am currently using China Telecom’s 500 Mbps broadband service. I may switch to China Unicom’s 500 Mbps service soon.
I know it might be really hard, but I'm going to give it a try anyway.
Thanked by 1Havaist
Comments
HK VPS from HostHatch, works surprisingly well. Obviously, must still have V2Ray/VLess/Reality/Shadowsocks and all the usual China stuff, but the performance
is great. They apparently can use it to stream 4K without lag from it, which was a hard
thing to find before compared to the price you pay.
I took a look: Hong Kong, 3TB of data, $100/year. It would be even better if there were some kind of discount or something. It’s already very close.
You can take the basic:
NVMe 2 GB
1 AMD EPYC Milan core (fair share)
2 GB DDR4 RAM
10 GB NVMe Storage
1 TB bandwidth
$4.00 / Monthly
And increase the b/w as much as you need. Assuming you don't need like 10TB,
will still gonna end up cheaper.
But definitely take a monthly test first.
For China connectivity, the VPS location matters but the protocol matters even more. HK and Singapore both work, but without the right protocol you'll still get blocked.
VLESS + Reality is currently the most reliable option for China — it mimics real HTTPS traffic so the GFW can't detect it. WireGuard and OpenVPN are increasingly blocked.
HostHatch HK is a solid pick as mentioned, but pair it with Xray Reality and you'll have much better results than with a standard VPN setup.
Just a friendly reminder: for Chinese users, using this kind of disguised protocol to get around the firewall is against the law, and you could potentially get arrested by your government for it.
The police won't waste their time arresting people for using VPN,because there are simply too many of them, as long as they don't do anything bad outside the GFW...
Given that the services will be used within Mainland China, utilizing premium premium networks such as CN2 GIA, 9299, or CMI2 is highly essential. Currently, nosla.cloud appears to be the best option, offering excellent network routing with fair pricing and active stock.
Oh those foreign ministries have accounts on X, but banned their citizens from free information and expression. Thank you for that useless reminder, because I guess no one doesn't know circumventing GFW is "illegal" there. As a matter of fact, I think GFW is illegal against spirits of law.
If you think it’s useless, then so be it. I don’t really enjoy communicating with someone as rude as you — like a rat hiding in the gutter, constantly questioning other people’s goodwill.
Your original post sounded more like a threatening than "goodwill" - Tell me, who in states like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea don't know it is "illegal" to view YouTube? Only innocent people in free world are not fully aware yet, though most can sense it.
I don't bother to reply to that personal attack, instead just restating the truth - viewing free information is a privilege rather than basic right in those states. Otherwise how could someone or departments repeat propaganda on X, YouTube, etc while claiming it is illegal for other locals? You stated one part of the truth - people may get fined or arrested, while I state another part.
Besides, you didn't have to emphasize it is "for Chinese users", as foreigners are included as well. Remember two Michaels? It's just not right or fair.
Not Chinese but are you also saying people from restricted countries like Russia or iran can't use a VPN? We are on a public western forum, not Nodeseek. Your comment is your own. You can't tell other users what they can or cannot use since they will use a VPN anyways
Hey, hey, everyone, don't be noisy. As a Chinese, I have to explain. Accessing VPN is not a matter of business in China. But as for being caught in prison, in fact, as long as you don't break the law on the Internet, they won't care about you. I have also asked the police. They also showed that as long as they don't do anything, such as spreading pornography, visiting cult websites, etc., they are too lazy to care about you. China is not North Korea. We will not be too closed. The lessons of history are vivid. The ban on the Internet in part is also to better protect the next generation before they have the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
Thanks for explaining, @curioue
Hopefully travellers don't take your opinion as legal advice.
Are VPNs Legal in China? What the Law Actually Says
TL;DR
China treats most VPN use as illegal, and the consequences can include fines, device confiscation, or detention. The U.S. State Department warns that “use of a VPN in China is illegal in most cases.”1 The reality on the ground is more nuanced: millions of people in China use unauthorized VPNs every day, enforcement against foreign visitors has been sporadic, and the government’s primary targets are VPN providers and sellers rather than individual users. That said, the legal risk is real, it’s growing, and anyone traveling or doing business in China needs to understand exactly where the lines are.
Example cases:
Fine For VPN Use Sparks Rare Backlash on Chinese Internet
Administrative Penalties against individuals on censorship circumvention in China
China has been closing it door increasingly, just search its anti-espionage law, anti-foreign sanction law, data security law and most notorious national security law in Hong Kong. And who and which entities have been fined, under detention, sentenced, or banned to leave China.
Recent examples:
Brokerage firms were fined for providing Chinese investors access to foreign markets
Due diligence went into effect this year for cross-border remittance of 5,000 RMB ($739)or more
Bandwagonhost (Ukraine owner)
Without a Chinese upstream provider, you can not get a good connectivity to China. Bandwagon signed route with China Telecom so their product optimised for mainland China.
Except them, I don't know other provider who do this except Chinese companies.
At this budget, I would suggest sharing a server with someone if possible. If you want to buy your own VPS, you can wait for special offers from DMIT or BandwagonHost, although with rising hardware and network costs, those old cheap deals may not come back easily.
About the “using Twitter/X, Facebook, VPN” topic: I can share my own experience. When I was studying in Wuhan, I was once questioned about whether I had used Twitter/X and Facebook. Later, when I went back home during the holiday, my phone was checked and I had to go through some questioning. In the end, nothing serious happened to me physically, but it scared my family a lot and it was still a very unpleasant experience.
For Chinese people who can read and post on this forum, the warning that “using VPNs or bypassing the firewall may be illegal in China” is basically common knowledge. It is not some hidden secret. Of course, it is still worth reminding foreigners or people who are not familiar with the situation.
From what I have seen, in most parts of China, simply using a VPN is usually not the main issue for ordinary people. The real risk is whether you touch sensitive political red lines, spread sensitive content, or attract attention. Of course, this is only my personal experience, not legal advice.
So my suggestion is: share a server if you want to save money, test carefully before paying yearly, and avoid touching sensitive topics if you are in China.
我一个国人都看不下去了 交流就交流 你在引战啥呢
TIL, YouTube is blocked in China.
Isolationism or Internet Isolationism
Same with copyright violations in the United States. If I post a picture here of a copyrighted image that doesn't fall under fair use, I don't have to expect the FBI breaking down my door. China is not fundamentally different. They don't care about the vast majority of people using VPNs as long as that's all they do. It's much more effective for them to just block the VPNs.
That's not to say that I think it's right that they do that, but a Chinese person shouldn't be scared off from using a VPN just because "it's illegal" in the same way that your profile picture would be illegal were it the logo of Microsoft Edge rather than Mozilla Firefox.
aws Lightsail is a sound move. it has a great connectivity to China unicom/mobile.
We can offer these prices in LAX, it has good connectivity to China, if you increase your budget to $20/month we can offer CN2 GIA, 9929, CMI2 as-well.
Funny, really funny, because one of the "two Michaels" actually was a spy and a canadian settlement confirmed it.
My main point though is the nasty habit of many to indirectly force their world view/system on others.
The Chinese and Russians in particular have countries and cultures way way older than the Murricans, but even North-Koreans no less than we westerners do have the right to have and value their own system, laws, culture, etc. and need not care a flying fuck about us liking it or not.
And let's be honest: it absolutely makes sense to keep western "culture" trash out of their countries.
Your budget is actually fine, you just need the right route. For China Telecom, look for CN2 GIA, and for Unicom, look for AS9929. Standard lines will lag bad at night.Check out DMIT (LAX.Pro) or wait for a BandwagonHost (Limited Edition) promo. They often drop around $80-$90/year with enough bandwidth for 1080p streaming.
Do you have a location preference? Seems like Singapore might be a better bet than Spokane. I don't have any specifically optimized routes to China.
I assume you can't just use Wireguard?
Try traceroute mainland china IP. It often travel half the globe to LAX
In China its quicker and easier just to walk the packets to their destination
https://digvps.com/review
this is the website specialized in China connective VPS reviews, as you are living in China, you should understand Chinese
my advise is use US west CN2/9929/CMIN2 servers, because it's cheap and stable
Thanks for replying, but I can't get your points from your examples, because obviously I draw an opposite conclusion - that is, United States is a place respects rule of law, while communist China does not, so starting your sentence with "Same with" really confuses me.
Specifically speaking, there are clear lines between what actions are legal and what are not in most democratic countries, stated by the law. While in communist regimes, the wording of law is intentionally vague, thus it is the judge alone who decides whether a defendant is guilty or not, no jury, no case law.
Sometimes, like what happened to Jimmy Lai, both the judge and defense lawyer were appointed by CCP, so it was sad but not surprising that Mr. Lai was sentenced to 20 years for what he had said before the notorious national security law came into effect on 1st July, 2020. So in my view, communist China is fundamentally different, otherwise U.S senators would not have call it a "systemic challenge" or "adversary".
Plus, you mentioned "fair use". Can people in communist regimes "fair use" Wikipedia, Google, Whatsapp, GitHub, Fox News? The fuller list can be seen on GitHub by searching GFW list. Look, I'm talking about common sense - If something is deemed not right by most people, then it should be illegal, so most reasonable people don't take pride in piracy; Children must not smoke; GFW is morally wrong, but "legal" in communist China, which was built with the help of Cisco, Microsoft, etc, costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
So the spirit of law in the U.S. is to protect the good while punish the bad, while in China it is to server the communist party, or elites or you-know-who, to suppress potential dissidents from the very beginning.
Finally, I've seen many people praising China, as a matter of fact, I think they just defend communism, and try to earn immoral money from that. Like I said, "common sense" - everybody can praise or criticize anything reasonably, whether it is China or the U.S., but the standards must be almost equal - Now obviously, communism is the global trouble maker, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Iran's slaughter of its people and harassment in the Strait of Hormus.
No matter how much those people seemingly love China, dare anyone feed their children with milk made in China since 2008 until now? And where do most criminals escape to? With which foreign currency? Probably the U.S. and U.S. dollar, but in no way China nor RMB(CNY).
By the way, do you know it is illegal to post weather forecast of any place in China on Chinese social media? Not to mention the latest "Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law" (beautiful and touching name, I know), people don't use standard Chinese characters, don't show respect to China (flag, emblem, or a cent coin), don't teach children patriotism at home, etc are all guilty, whether you are Chinese or not, whether you do, will do or did in the past.
Spokespersons of Chinese foreign ministry always talk about "multilateralism", "charters of the U.N.", but when 14 nations reject its claim over most South China Sea on 10th anniversary of the arbitration, China shows no respect to the decision.
How is this? I am not sure of the best IPs to test with.
I have seen host that routes from asia -> LAX -> CN and EU->LAX-> CN