Sometimes you may need to browse the Internet with an IP address from China for unblocking sites like Youku and Tudou or testing the accessibility of your site/app. Keep reading to find out how to get one. Learn how to browse with a China IP address.

What is a China IP address?

A Chinese IP address is assigned to an ISP or hosting provider that provides Internet services in China. The most common Chinese IPs have the following format:

• 1.0.32.0 to 1.0.63.255
• 1.24.0.0 to 1.31.255.255
• 14.112.0.0 to 14.127.255.255
• 27.16.0.0 to 27.31.255.255
• 27.192.0.0 to 27.223.255.255

Are you interested in finding more info regarding the Chinese IP blocks? Check this post.

Why would you need a Chinese IP address?

It is more common to try to get a US IP or UK IP address from China than to get a Chinese IP from another part of the World. But, there may be use cases that justify this need. For example, if you want to:

• Test if your website is blocked in China.
• Test your website or an app like a user located in China.
• Unblock Youku, Tudou, Sohu, LeTV or other Chinese restricted websites.
• Check the connectivity to your servers from China.

3 Ways to get a China IP address

1. Use a VPN service

The solution that I recommend to get such an IP is by using a VPN service. VPNs provide a reliable connection, good speed, and excellent security. As far as I know, there are no good free VPN services that provide access to servers located in China. Thus, you should go for the premium solutions.

Here are the VPN providers that I found and that provide Chinese IP address:

• PureVPN – Guangdong (4 servers), Shanghai (2 servers)
• HideMyAss – Beijing (1 server), Guangdong/Shenzhen (1 server), Sichuan Sheng/Chengdu (1 server)
• ibVPN – Beijing (1 server), Shanghai (1 server)

2. Use web proxies

Another method to browse using Chinese IP address is by using a web proxy.  It is free, faster to start, but not better than VPNs. Web proxies are usually slow and unreliable for browsing and streaming.

To use such a web proxy merely visit the proxy site, type in the desired URL and press the Go or Submit button. Thus, the site is loaded from the IP of the proxy, not from your IP address.

One such a web proxy with Chinese IP address is Teleport. Also, you may Google for “Chinese web proxy.” If you know more feel free to share them in the comments below.

Important! Before starting to use a web proxy, please read the following post: Risks of using a proxy site.

3. Manually change your IP using paid or open proxies

An alternative to web proxies is the open or paid proxies. They are more stable and usually faster. But, you may need to pay attention to your privacy. DO NOT enter your credit card details or other sensitive info while browsing using open proxies.

You may find proxies with Chinese IP addresses on Free-Proxy.cz. After you choose one, you need to set up your browser to use that proxy. Take for example 111.13.2.131:80 and configure your browser to use it when you connect to the internet.

Next, if you don’t know how to change your IP manually you should check these posts:

• Google Chrome – How To Hide Your IP While Browsing Using Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge – How to Setup a Proxy for Microsoft Edge
• Internet Explorer – How To Manually Hide Your IP Using Internet Explorer
• Firefox: How To Manually Hide Your IP
• Safari – How To Manually Mask Your IP Using Safari

If you know others, please share them in the comments. Also, you may check the following list of active VPN promotions.

Are you not happy with the VPN speed? Learn about the things that may impact your VPN connection.

To sum up, there are several options when you need to change your IP address to one from China. I strongly recommend trying a VPN service, but may also try proxies.

Sites blocked? Use a VPN!

These websites are still blocked, and the Chinese are now scrambling to get a piece of their favorite websites by bypassing the restrictions with the help of free China VPN, short for Virtual Private Networks. It is obvious that while the censoring authorities want the citizens to stay away from the ‘corrupting’ influence of these commercial sites, the average Chinese internet user cannot do without these sites, and is looking at various alternative methods to get a daily dose of the same.

This is essentially a struggle between the close-minded authoritarian Censorship and the open-minded Netizens who are essentially global citizens thanks to the internet. The freedom of the average Chinese Netizen has been compromised by the aptly named Great Firewall of the un-trusting censors.

Are you looking for a free China VPN?

Therefore, looking for free VPNs seems to be a good alternative to preserve this freedom of choice. However, there are certainly some roadblocks on the free VPN highway. These include:

1. The Government authorities can easily block free VPNs, including their main website, the site that is providing the free VPN service in the first place.

This was the case with several sites like Hotspot Shield and Alonweb, two very popular sites that provided VPN connectivity.

2. There are technical obstructions after the installation phase.

After installing OpenVPN or other such application systems, the next step is to find the essential files required for further processing, like client.ovpn, which can be tricky with VPN. However, this is only true for free VPN, while paid VPN does not have this setback. Also, the connectivity of free VPNs in China can be frustratingly unreliable at times.

3. The technical support for free VPNs is essentially missing, and therefore one has to source help from unreliable and often not very helpful sources, like online forums and free advice on the web, which can be useless and mundane, apart from posing the additional language barrier and communication block problems.

This is especially true in the Chinese context, as most Chinese Netizens are not very comfortable with Non-Chinese languages. Using only Chinese language forums greatly depletes the potential information available online.

4. For speed and efficiency, most US servers on the West Coast are considered the best for the East Asian countries.

These are also the most commonly and widely used servers for this geographical region, at least until they were blocked by the censoring authorities. Now, the Chinese Netizens are left with useless VPNs that will not function unless they are altered to connect with other servers that are still available, but which might not be as fast as the previous servers like HotSpot Shield.

Chinese Internet users are now left with several free VPNs, which are:

• AlonWeb (Update 2/7/2010:  It’s not available anymore!)
• The Free VPN (Update 5/16/2010: No longer working)
• HotSpot Shield
• ItsHidden
• HideIpVPN (currently not offering free accounts)

There is, of course, still left the option of paid VPNs like (NordVPN, HideMyAss, ibVPN or ExpressVPN), but as these require PayPal or MasterCard or at least Visa credit cards, it is still an impossibility for a large number of Chinese netizens who do not own any of the aforementioned payment tools.

Are you a Chinese Netizen? What are the free China VPN that you can access?