Internet, WeChat and paying: digital life in China, honestly
Google, WhatsApp and Instagram don't work in China, and that's not a fault but policy. Daily life runs on WeChat and Alipay — your contact with the Netherlands shifts there too. What that means in practice, what employers arrange, and where the law stands.
On most emigration questions you can negotiate: a more expensive neighbourhood, a different school, a year later. On the Chinese internet you can't. Whoever moves to China also moves digitally — and that conversation belongs in phase 1, not in the first jet-lag week. This article describes the reality without making it prettier or uglier.
What doesn't work
The Chinese internet is filtered, and the list hits precisely the services Dutch people lean on: the whole Google ecosystem (search, Gmail, Maps, Drive, Photos), YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and most Western news sites. There is no official block list — services simply don't work, sometimes for years, sometimes intermittently. Dutch banking apps and DigiD usually do work, but can stumble on SMS verification; so set up DigiD before you leave with the app and ID check, because there is no DigiD desk anywhere in China.
Practical consequence one: your photo backup, your calendar and your passwords must not live exclusively in a blocked service. Before you leave, convert your digital household to services that work there, and keep your Dutch departure file somewhere you can open from Shanghai.
What takes its place
The answer is WeChat: messages, paying, the municipal counters, the school news, the menu — daily life runs on one app, with Alipay as the second pillar. Since 2024 you can link a foreign credit card in both apps, which saves the first days; after that you want the Chinese bank account behind it, because rent, salary and payments between people run only on that. And contact with home? In practice that shifts along: many families install WeChat in the Netherlands — it simply works there — and so keep one channel with children and grandchildren. Whoever has that conversation with parents and friends before leaving prevents things going quiet.
Where the law stands
On VPNs the guide should be honest, in two directions. Chinese regulation (MIIT, 2017) permits cross-border traffic only via licensed channels: companies arrange legal international lines — ask your employer about it, because for your work this is usually simply arranged. For private use of foreign VPN services the status is grey: the providers are illegal there, enforcement almost always targets sellers, and yet it isn't a right you can build on. This guide gives no circumvention advice; it says what there is. One factual observation does belong with that: whoever roams on a Dutch SIM card falls under their home network — useful to know for the first days and for visitors.
The honest ending
For one person this is a daily friction you get used to; for another the reason not to go. Both reactions are reasonable. So take the test: travel there visa-free for a week, live that week out of WeChat, and see whether you like life when the internet is Chinese. That experiment costs a plane ticket — and prevents an emigration that founders on this one point.
In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to China.
What this rests on
The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change — when in doubt the source is leading, not this article.
- MIIT — the regulation of cross-border internet traffic (2017, translation) — chinalawtranslate.com
- State Council — the payment guide for foreigners (2024) — english.www.gov.cn
Read on
- ChinaArrival in China2 min
Buying a house in China: only after a year, one home — and the land stays the state's
China lets foreigners buy only after at least a year of working or studying in the country, and then one home for their own use — cities add requirements of their own on top. What you buy, moreover, is never the land: that stays the state's, you buy the building on a land-use right of seventy years. The deed tax has been mild since December 2024: 1% up to and including 140 square metres, above that 1.5%.
Updated 7 September 2026
- ChinaArrival in China3 min
Your first weeks in China: three clocks and one order
Within 24 hours to the police, within 15 days the work permit, within 30 days the residence permit — and after that everything builds in one order: SIM card, bank account, payment apps. The registration slip from day one is the key at every step.
Updated 21 August 2026
- ChinaThe move3 min
Your pet to China: the titre route past quarantine
The Netherlands isn't on the Chinese list of designated countries, so the default is thirty days of quarantine — but with a chip, vaccination and a titre test at the recognised lab in Lelystad your dog or cat is released immediately on arrival. The rules: one animal per person, and mind Beijing's dog rules.
Updated 21 August 2026