Though China is famed for its internet censorship, there are reasons you might want a Chinese IP address. There are many Chinese people located around the world - some who've emigrated to a new country to and become citizens of that country, and others who are temporarily outside of China for travel, business, or work. Even non-Chinese can appreciate certain things about Chinese internet - things like free downloads, free movies, and, perhaps as a place to hide out from invasive western governments (in exchange for an invasive Chinese one).

You can change your IP address with a VPN. I wouldn't trust a proxy server unless it was from a very reliable source - one that has been in business for several years and has good reviews from around the web. Random open proxy servers or web based proxies with servers in China are just way too much of a security risk to be worth the money saved. Chinese netizens are notorious for hacking and spam. Do you want to become another statistic?

VPN services in general are well trusted in internet communities. These services are designed to make your connection secure and private, and they work hard to accomplish this. Over the past years there have been one or two VPN services that made questionable decisions regarding users private information, and they suffered for it. Needless to say, when you operate an online business, if you mess something up, everyone knows about it. If you're worried about privacy and security, just do a search online for reviews of the site you're thinking about.

VPNs use encryption, sometimes military grade encryption, to prevent 3rd party users and organizations from eavesdropping or even hacking into your data. VPN tunneling makes your communication with the VPN servers in China, as well as the other web servers and users you communicate with completely anonymous.

There are a few issues to consider before you use a Chinese IP address to connect to the internet. The main one is that when people say that the internet is censored here, they're not kidding. Sometimes Google and Gmail doesn't work. Facebook and YouTube never work. Random blogs and new sites, parts of Wikipedia, and many other sites or features of sites are blocked. I live here. People here use VPNs to change their IP to get a NON-Chinese IP and access sites outside The Great Firewall. Are you sure you want to be inside The GFW?

Ok, so you want to stream Chinese TV and movies on Funshion or PPTV. Or maybe you know a good download site. The Chinese version of QQ doesn't work great outside of Chinese either. Though internet freedom isn't one of them, there are reasons to use a Chinese IP for your smartphone or computer. Depending on the service, you may find that PPTP (this is a VPN protocol, not to be confused with PPTV streaming) or L2TP for your smartphone won't work. OpenVPN for Mac, Windows, or Linux should work fine. You need to check what your VPN service offers.

Ok, so you know what you're getting yourself into. Now you need to find a Chinese IP address. The truth is that very few services offer this option. Some may offer IP addresses from Hong Kong or Macau, or even Taiwan. IP address from Mainland China are rare. They are out there though - just be sure to do your homework.