The Great Firewall doesn't restrict SSH, so you can functionally ignore it (assuming using e.g. `ssh -D` is second-nature to you).
When I was there last year, it took some doing to get a VPN working. Mullvad was pretty good but it would take a few tries to find an endpoint I could connect to. The simplest escape hatch is to have a cellular connection from another country, but that's either expensive or slow.