Using the Internet in China 2023
These are a few internet absolutes in China. To use the internet means to use your smartphone. You absolutely must download the WeChat app, get a verified account, and get a subscription to Astr*ll before you get into China. Apps you will end up needing but I would say aren’t required prior to entry are Alipay, Baidu Maps, and DiDi.
WeChat world
WeChat, (微信 pinyin wēixìn), absolutely dominates China. You must use WeChat and it is completely unavoidable. WeChat is used for everything:
Sending files to businesses
Contact information shared between you and businesses such as hotels, rental companies, notary companies, print shops, vendors
Scanning virtually all QR codes
Accessing websites hosted by WeChat
Getting WiFi information from hotels
Ordering food on-site at a restaurant that wants you to scan a QR code
Filling out legal documents
Paying for absolutely anything
and so on.
People will often times have no email and only WeChat. People will choose to not text and instead use WeChat.
When you see a round QR code, it’s to be scanned only in WeChat.
When you see a normal square QR code… you should still opt to try scanning with WeChat since often times when you scan with the normal camera app you are taken to the URL in Safari and it will not load, but it will in WeChat.
I would advise you to get an account preferably before you enter China; if you have a Chinese friend who already has an account they will have to help you verify yours, especially as a foreigner. If you do it in China, make sure your V*N is TURNED OFF otherwise you will be blocked from making an account and suffer dearly for it.
One major service WeChat offers that foreigners cannot access is WeChat pay because it must be linked to a Chinese bank so you must use another form of QR code payment: Alipay.
Alipay, your only payment method in China
A large number of places will not take cards and only take scannable methods. Alipay (支付宝 pinyin zhīfùbǎo) functions just as well as WeChat Pay and accepts foreign methods of payment. Here’s a list of examples of places that take QR code payments:
hotels
toll roads
clothing market merchants
convenience stores
fake designer shops
restaurants
pharmacies
the list goes on.
When you are super unlucky a place will only take WeChat pay and maybe you will have no cash on you at the time, but generally, Alipay always works! I strongly advise you to remember what it’s called in Chinese so you can understand when people offer you that payment option, or you can ask yourself, since the default is still WeChat pay.
Paying with Alipay can work in the following ways:
Sometimes stores will have the Alipay-specific scanner and you can hold up your phone with the QR code pulled up to the device. It looks a bit like an iPad mini and you will see the Alipay cloud logo.
Sometimes they will scan with the gun they used to scan your items.
Sometimes there will be a QR code scanner that works for both WeChat and Alipay.
Sometimes if the shop is smaller or you are at a market with individually run shops, the merchant will ask you to scan their own QR code and you must input the amount you owe yourself. They with either have a system set up that will shout out the amount paid when they receive it, or you will just show them you successfully sent it.
Make sure your V*N is off, otherwise, it will NOT work. Do the same for any other Chinese apps you use.
Map apps
Use Apple Maps if you are driving. Apple Maps is pretty bare-bones and missing the vast majority of businesses in China, but can be useful for decluttered directions.
Use Baidu Maps (百度地图 in Chinese; the app name is in Chinese in the App Store) for an information overload. You can pretty comfortably do searches for businesses on Baidu knowing that most of them have been accounted for. There are some businesses no longer in operation that still sit on Baidu so keep that in mind. Another usability concern is that there is no translated version of the app so you have to be able to read some Chinese or be willing to constantly take screenshots to plug into your translate app. Here is a list of useful characters to know and potentially plug into Baidu maps for when you see no familiar businesses around, though I am sure as a unique individual you may find other business types I do not have listed useful to know as well.
DiDi, for the cheapest taxis
DiDi (滴滴) is like Uber or Lyft in China. It’s pretty intuitive to use and thankfully in English, likely because it has expanded to be a global company and operates in Australia, an English-speaking country, among a number of other countries that are not English-speaking.
Astr*ll
If not this one, then another— you absolutely have to get a V*N. It is incredibly difficult to use the internet and find English resources without one. I won’t go too much into detail, but Astr*ll is the only foreign one I’m aware of that works well in China. If you find another that is also acceptable you can by all means go ahead and use it. I personally do not recommend relying on a free service. Do your research, pay for a good one, and you’ll be surfing just fine.
The Great Wall and its limits
I’m deliberately limiting myself from referring to it and other terms directly in efforts against getting flagged! Interestingly enough, once you go past a certain point north and sit on the North Korean border, the need for a V*N becomes almost zero using phone data (though this is not the case with WiFi, you must turn it on for WiFi). It seems that China has all but dismissed the need for their great fiery wall to reach the edges of their country in the north. Interestingly enough, this is the case even away from the borders— if China is a rooster with its head facing northeast, the entire head is home to free-range internet.
Perhaps because the area is majority semi-autonomous, perhaps they forgot, or perhaps they couldn’t be bothered. When I research it myself I find no information on this hole in digital defenses— I welcome hypotheses as to why and would love to hear others’ thoughts.