[cageface]

You need to be able to pay from a US credit card in order to buy anything from the US store. Which is out of the reach of ordinary Chinese. I often help my Vietnamese friends buy apps from the US app store for the same reason.

[seanmcdirmid]

Yes, but for the free apps it doesn’t matter; it really is something that is useful. Most ordinary Chinese aren’t going to be interested in those apps anyways, like they wouldn’t be interested in side loading.