reCAPTCHA does not work in China mainland (it does in HK, but that's different for now). But translate.google.cn (note the .cn) works fine. Similar visual recaptchs used on Chinese services tend to focus on Chinese characters on a low resolution picture background. Training for street names? I don't know

Resolving to google.com does not resolve (gmail does, a bit, IMAP but only every few hours or days, depending on connection sans VPN).

if this is true, I'd love to hear the alternate! I use recaptcha and hate that my chinese customers need to do wacky stuff to circumvent it.