A VPN in China is a tool you install before the plane, test on the network you will actually use, and leave on without wrecking WeChat Pay. It is not a ranking of logos from last summer.
r/chinatravel and r/chinalifer recycle the same question every month: what still works? ExpressVPN is fine for one person in Hangzhou and dead for the next on China Mobile hotel Wi-Fi. LetsVPN disappears, then a phone app comes back. Astrill is “the reliable one” until three devices fail in the same week.
If you are buying, shop the failure modes. Not the ad.
What “works” has to mean
A handshake that says connected is not a session. On China Mobile campus and hotel Wi-Fi the pattern is: connect, ten seconds of traffic, reset, new node, repeat. You have used three exits and still have no Gmail.
A VPN in China that works is one that:
- Holds a session on China Mobile, Unicom, and Telecom, not only on one of them
- Has a Windows and macOS app, not only a phone client you then tether
- Does not throw you from Singapore to Los Angeles when a node dies
- Lets WeChat, Alipay, and the bank stay on the local path
- Does not put a traffic cap under an “unlimited” headline
Qiao is built for that list. Hysteria2 on a small fleet, one account across Windows, macOS, and Android, unlimited traffic on every paid plan. Torrents are blocked. WeChat can stay local on Meridian Smart Flow.
Install it before you land
Apple’s China store does not carry the usual foreign VPN apps. Google Play does not work. People who wait for hotel Wi-Fi are stuck with an eSIM or a friend who already has a client.
Download the app, create the account, and take the complimentary first day of Meridian while you still have a network that can reach us. A password you have never typed is a bad first hour in Pudong.
China Mobile is the hard case
Express and Nord failing on China Mobile is not a personality trait of those brands. The last-mile network resets long-lived encrypted flows it has seen before. Protocol toggling (Lightway, OpenVPN TCP, “stealth”) is jiggling a key. Sometimes TCP holds after 22:00. Sometimes nothing does.
Test on the hotel Wi-Fi *and* the SIM. A home-fiber test in Europe does not predict Changsha Mobile at 21:00.
Foreigners, residents, and “Chinese VPN”
Search results mix two different products. A Chinese VPN in the sense of a mainland-made app is a different purchase from a VPN that works in China. Foreigners who need Google, GitHub, Claude, and a company inbox want the second. Read Chinese VPN vs a VPN that works in China and the best VPN for foreigners in China before you pay for a name you saw in an airport ad.
Traffic caps are a China-specific trap
Outside China, when you hit a cap you switch to the raw connection and keep working. Inside China, the raw connection is the thing you bought the VPN to leave. Hitting a cap means you lost the product.
Claude Code, YouTube, and the first night of App Store updates will chew a 200 GB footnote. Qiao’s pricing page says unlimited. The Terms say the same. No monthly cap, no overage. P2P is blocked; work and video are not.
Payment and a way back
Cards issued in China, Alipay, and WeChat Pay are how people here pay. Qiao’s website checkout takes those, plus crypto. The apps do not take Alipay; that stays on the site.
First paid purchase: 7 calendar days to request a refund. After that the sale is final, except where the law says otherwise. Support is signed-in chat on qiaovpn.com, or support@qiaovpn.com. Not a Telegram handle.
Short list
- App installed and signed in before the flight.
- Unlimited traffic written on the pricing page, not in a footnote.
- A split so WeChat and Alipay stay off the tunnel.
- A payment method you already use.
- A 7-day window if the first hotel Wi-Fi kills it.
See Voyager and Meridian. First day in the app does not need a card.