Yeah but the process of taking a phone, getting the unlock code, installing it, etc.

True, although you can just sandbox it and refuse to give it permissions.

Foreigners looking to travel through China’s Xinjiang

That’s only for Xinjiang.

Yep. Pretty efficient most of the time

You don’t. I went to China a few weeks ago and my phone was never of any suspicion or brought into question.

I have never heard of that happening. surely that’ll take ages if they had to stick an app on every foreigner’s phone

I unironically think the USA’s security might be worse than China. Everyone in China was quite friendly and patient.

They can, but they probably won’t in all likelihood. You could get in a car accident on the way to the airport. Your aeroplane could also crash.

Doesn’t the USA do the exact same thing?

Fair enough to be fair. I did make sure the passport I was using to enter China was that of a country with no political drama happening. It did allow visa free entry though as well, so that was nice.

I actually see China and the USA as the same level now. Difference is that the USA doesn’t have cool railway infrastructure and whatever the heck is going on in Chongqing.

I don’t really think China is going to want to cause an international incident, especially during a tourist drive. Although it can be risky if they want to take hostages.

They can’t do that unless they take your devices, gain admin access and install stuff onto it. You don’t just get spyware installed your phone simply by entering a country.

Also the whole “if you aren’t intending to do anything illegal” bit really reads like all the piece of shit bootlicking conservatives after George Floyd.

Except that is a whole different context. The argument doesn’t work if you’re a citizen of a country and granting your government more and more powers. It would apply maybe if you were a Chinese citizen. OP isn’t talking about moving to China or installing a similar government in their home country. They are going on holiday. You can behave yourself and cooperate with their requirements for a few weeks. If you are really against a country having powers to check your phone and devices and such as a matter of principle, not because you’ve got anything to hide, then don’t go.

George Floyd was an American citizen murdered in his own country by the powers that were supposed to protect him. Big difference.

Although I did take precautions myself, such as deleting my memes/downloads folder just in case I saved anything that could be offensive. But it didn’t matter because they didn’t check my phone anyway for simply being there.

China itself cares the most about public disorder and foreign influence. As long as you aren’t intending on causing foreign interference in how they do things and are just going for purposes of tourism/adventure/meeting people, then you’ll be absolutely fine. They don’t really care enough about you to give you special treatment unless you are seen as a threat like that.

What are the risks, if you aren’t intending on doing anything illegal?

Case against you for doing what exactly? Just don’t break the law. It’s not hard. They’re hardly going to care much about an average American going on holiday unless he intends on causing problems, a disruption, or potentially has useful information

I found deepseek was good for using as a search engine. Lol.

Not really. It’s a grey area. They don’t care about foreigners using vpns at all. It’s kind of expected. Foreign SIMs don’t even face blocks on mobile networks. If you’re going to a sensitive province of China, I think they’ll care slightly more, but as long as you’re not using the VPN to do something illegal, you’ll be okay.

If you will be using roaming for mobile data in China, you won’t face any blocking.

Accessing over cloudflare tunnels or just a normal exposed server works.

VPNs work most of the time. But you can be cut off after like 30 minutes to an hour. I’d recommend only turning it on when you need it.

I’ve been to China very recently.

You will most likely face speed issues, although this may be due to the physical infrastructure itself connecting China to the outside internet isn’t really that stellar. As everything Chinese citizens typically use is hosted in China.

They worked for me most of the time. They cut off after like an hour of use. So I just switch between them.

What’s a better alternative that offer good ddos protection and tunnels

What slop are you posting. And your description sounds AI