[z2]

Not sure if you were being serious, but along these lines, I stayed in a Shenzhen hotel late last year that strangely provided unfiltered internet. Of course it wasn't advertised as such, but Google worked (redirected to google.com.hk). Given the hotel was right on the border with Hong Kong, one could only speculate how this worked and which option was easier: always-on VPN or antenna :)

[xkcd-sucks]

I've had consistent, unrestricted access to google/facebook/videos from 1989, all over China, using a tmobile sim card registered in another country.

A financial services "startup" in sz manages to run a VPN with some sort of official permission. Not sure what sort of connections made this possible...

[uola]

Yes, roaming works. Preferably you use a HK sim. At least foreign companies can buy a connection to a foreign IX that doesn't go through the firewall. You can pickup HK 4G in SZ without roaming. International traffic from China sucks in general, not only because of the firewall. You can buy better international connectivity in some cases.

[paulsutter]

My AT&T roaming in China was unfiltered too.

[mistermumble]

I was in Beijing two weeks ago, with 3 phones (AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile). I could not get Gmail on any of them. No Facebook, Twitter, Google search, Google translate, etc. I had to fall back to Yahoo Mail (and WeChat and QQ).

In Shenzhen, there was a moment in the hotel where Google worked for about 10 minutes. I was elated but then disappointed when that brief window of openness ended.

[omginternets]

How could you tell?