[ericmay]

Can folks in China run US-based models? Seems like they should take advantage of this overlap in peak timing.

[culi]

OpenAI and Anthropic restricted API access for developers based in mainland China, citing geopolitical competition and national security risks.

[ericmay]

Yes but does China also restrict Chinese citizens from using these models?

[shanoaice]

Kinda, China has the GFW so you need to circument that to access a larger part of global internet. Though that is relatively "easy" than to get a proper working SMS or KYC for Anthropic or OAI.

[linzhangrun]

Yes, use VPN; they are the main clients

[ericmay]

Why do they use a VPN?

[esseph]

Chinese state firewall?

[weird-eye-issue]

Well not just that, OpenAI explicitly blocks them

[ericmay]

Blocks Chinese users or blocks VPNs? Are they the only one?

[weird-eye-issue]

https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/supported-countries

You can check for yourself here to see that China and Hong Kong are conveniently missing. We do see blocking from Anthropic and Gemini as well in some regions

Also even though Vietnam and the Philippines are technically supported we do see blocking from some IP addresses in those regions too