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vpn appears to only work sporadically in china.

All VPNs work without problems with China if you roaming into their network with a foreign (e)SIM.

You will get unfiltered western internet as a tourist.

Which cost me a fortune once when I plugged my phone into laptop to charge (before free global roaming). Dropbox had been blocked for a week, suddenly a flurry of sms arrived (out of order). I’d spent £250 in 3 minutes.

I feel for you. Why would you allow laptop traffic to be routed through the phone though? At least in iOS plugging the phone for charging or backup does not automatically tether.

I often tether off my phone so has tethering enabled, just hasn’t charged from the laptop in all that time

Wasn’t a lot in the end scheme of things - less that the cost of a night in the hotel, let alone the full trip

> Dropbox had been blocked for a week

Why was it blocked for a week? Not sure I understand what happened to you.

China blocked it.

my personal pet theory is that china could in principle block whatever they wanted, but, decide instead to block only sometimes and with some random noise thrown in, if only to impose a tax or cost on trying to connect out but to have some plausible deniability on not having it be impossible while still retaining the option of turning the dial to 11 if/when need be.

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