(I live in China) I would advise against VPN entirely. I am unsure about the state ability to decrypt the content of the connection (heavily depends on how the VPN is configured really — weak and legacy ciphers, etc.). But they will detect it and eventually you'll start dropping packets like crazy.
A simple way to evade all of this is to use shadowsocks with a strong cipher and strong password between your computer in China and your server outside of it. Don't use any free server and don't use any commercial shadowsocks offerings. Set it up yourself, it's pretty easy.
On the mobile phone side of things. I wouldn't trust anything. Especially Apple that has been very complaisant with local authorities.
China plays a tactical game: they pretend (or we suspect, and they want us to) that they can do a lot of things. But nobody knows the extent of what they are actually capable of.