If you're thinking of expanding a website into China, this article is for you. I spent a while researching what it takes to actually launch a website that works in China.
Here's the problem: if your site uses Google Fonts, Google Maps, YouTube embeds, Google Analytics, or reCAPTCHA, those features don't just load slowly in China. They don't load. The Great Firewall blocks them outright, and your site hangs waiting for responses that never come.
Quick way to check how exposed you are:
bashgrep -r "googleapis|google|youtube|gstatic" ./src
If that returns results, your site is broken for 1.1 billion people.
What I learned
China does $2.16 trillion in e-commerce annually. Largest online retail market in the world for 13 years running. But most Western sites don't function there because we build on Google infrastructure without thinking about it.
I put together a guide covering:
Hosting tradeoffs: Mainland China vs. Hong Kong vs. Singapore, with actual latency numbers
ICP licensing: Who needs it, who qualifies, when you can skip it
Replacing blocked services: Google Fonts → Useso, Google Maps → Baidu Maps, reCAPTCHA → GeeTest, etc.
Baidu SEO: Still uses meta keywords. Can't crawl JavaScript well. Different game than Google.
Design expectations: Chinese users prefer information-dense layouts—minimalism reads as "empty"
Full guide: How to Launch a Website in China: The Complete 2026 Guide
Hope it's useful. Happy to answer questions if anyone's working on this.
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