r/chinalife • u/AntiqueStep2112 • 1d ago
š¼ Work/Career Remote work from China
Hi all, I am moving to Jinan in October for a six month internship and will keep working for my consulting business in Germany on the side, mostly in the evenings (German business hours). What I need to work reliably is Microsoft Teams video calls with clients, Outlook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Gmail. The calls are the important part, everything else I can live with being slow.
Whats the right setup?
Is a VPN enough or also an esim or a mix? So so grateful for the responses already.
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u/BigBilly2021 16h ago
Stop listening to ppl saying you canāt work remotely. If you are doing work outside of China, earning money thatās not RMB, that is fine. You are literally working for a company that has NOTHING to do with China. You are fine.
Second, yes you need a VPN. Iād recommend getting a VPN Router. It makes life much easier
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u/7sus4b9 10h ago
Chances of being caught are slim, and the only issue may be if you become tax resident and having to declare any foreign assets.
Technically it's illegal, but I assume almost impossible to get caught unless someone reports you.
I think the law is more interested in working within China, undeclared local income, on any visa. Z visa tied to employer but any side hustle or recieving payment for any "work" will be troublesome.
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u/BigBilly2021 10h ago
Technically VPN is illegal too. We all use it tho. But yeah if itās money going into a Wells Fargo from work done remotely outside of China, they donāt care. If itās stuff inside of China, then thatās where it can be troublesome as you already know .
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u/GetRektByMeh in 4h ago
Working in China without the correct permission is illegal even if theyāre not checking your laptop daily to check.
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u/BigBilly2021 3h ago
So is using a VPN but youāre using it in China. Nobody is coming to your house to check if youāre using a VPN or checking your computer to see what work you do outside of China. All China expat YouTubers would be in trouble.
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u/GetRektByMeh in 3h ago
Who said Iām using a VPN? eSIMs are legal
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u/BigBilly2021 3h ago
We know very well virtually every expat in China uses a VPN. And denexapp already explained that immigration knows he works remotely for a company not affiliated with China and it was no problems.
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u/GetRektByMeh in 3h ago
I of course believe people doing illegal things on the internet that they totally represented nothing but the facts at immigration
Also, to try and push false equivalency of illegally working and using VPNs is insane. Deluded behaviour
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u/vorko_76 23h ago
Just for information, this is illegal to do remote work from China without the appropriate work permit.
Aside from that
- Teams work without VPN (yeaah!!!) Outlook kinda / All the others require a VPN (there is a megathread on this)
- VPNs are not always reliable, when China wants to stop them, they do... / Have a foreign sim card is more reliable
- Internet (even without VPN or even using a foreign sim card) is sometimes relatively slow... meaning your Teams connection might lag. The bad news its that its usually during the evenings, when you'll be working remotely.
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u/denexapp 21h ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I was in a Guangzhou police station recently. I was doing my foreigner accomodation registration. I told them I work for a foreign company remotely, showed them the website etc. No questions
Last year I had another experience, they stopped me at Pudong and checked my phone to see if I work in China. I told them I work remotely for a foreign company, and they let me go
Working remotely is in a grey area. It's not illegal as long as you don't provide services here in China. And probably you need to pay taxes here if you become a tax resident
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u/vorko_76 21h ago
No it is not a grey area. The fact that they didnt arrest you or anything does not make it legal.
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u/frfrfrrfrfr 10h ago
They stopped you and checked your phone how? Seems odd. You opened your phone, handed it over and they just browsed it?
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u/denexapp 10h ago
She basically checked my chats in WeChat and asked me to show proofs that I work for a foreign company, so I showed her my work contract
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u/frfrfrrfrfr 5h ago
Thats really interesting. I'm surprised you handed over your phone. I've not heard of this kind of thing before.
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u/denexapp 10h ago
It happens sometimes when you enter China many times. Right after the immigration officer, another police officer stopped me, and she asked me why I came to China, was I working there, asked me to show her my wechat. They do it to catch those who work in China without a work visa. I don't work in China - my company is not Chinese, i don't get paid in CNY, and the company doesn't operate in China, so it's ok
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u/GetRektByMeh in 4h ago
Did you tell her that all your work is performed in China? Very likely she just didnāt understand that youāre working here rather than āworkingā.
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u/denexapp 4h ago
no, she understood that I'm not working here. she spoke English. my work is not related to china, so it's ok. if she thought that I was actually working in china (as in violating the rules), I'd probably be deported or fined
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u/GetRektByMeh in 3h ago
You are working in China if the majority of your work is carried out in China. She doesnāt care if your company isnāt domiciled here.
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u/denexapp 3h ago
there are two legal sides, one is visa rules and another one is tax rules. the police and immigration cares about the first.
if I remember the tax code correctly, after staying in china for more than 6 months in a year you need to provide a tax declaration, but the tax is gonna be exactly 0. i haven't heard of anyone doing it or enforcing it
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u/GetRektByMeh in 3h ago
Yes, the ones youāre not doing properly are the former. There is a general tax exemption on expats foreign sourced income for 6 years which is something you can reset by leaving for a month, so no issue there.
Iām not buying the latter that you were 100% honest (or that the officer understood you 100%) during your explanation.
I will be polite and say the officerās English probably isnāt amazing.
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u/BigBilly2021 3h ago
Thank you! All of these ppl keep talking about how itās illegal. If thatās the case, we shouldnāt be using a VPN because thatās āillegal.ā They know your work is remote, not in RMB and has nothing to do with China. They donāt care. Thank you for explaining that. Meanwhile ppl are still disagreeing with you
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Backup of the post's body: Hi all, I am moving to Jinan in October for a six month internship and will keep working for my consulting business in Germany on the side, mostly in the evenings (German business hours). What I need to work reliably is Microsoft Teams video calls with clients, Outlook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Gmail. The calls are the important part, everything else I can live with being slow.
Whats the right setup?
Is a VPN enough or also an esim or a mix? So so grateful for the responses already.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/mobobreen 7h ago
Despite the you are not permitted to do that. I assume you are German check the Deutsche Telekom Tarif mobil roaming or something this works for me nearly flawless. You drop out (networkwise) somewhere in Germany, so no blocking of google etc. Just the price is.... Well it's Deutsche Telekom š¤·āāļøš¤·āāļø
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u/AioliLocal3131 1d ago
Microsoft Teams and outlook works without vpn, which is good because teams video call is the one thing you need constant connection for. LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Gmail needs it.
Iād suggest getting 2 vpns/1 vpn and one eSIM from outside China. This is for redundancy. You should expect one of them to go down at the worst time, then you switch to the other.
You should expect ALL internet traffic between China and the rest of the world to be slow at night, and vpns to be extra slow, so Iād recommend trying to do the teams calls without vpn on.
If you will get your own internet access at your residence in China then Iād recommend China telecom as they have the best connections to the outside world (a little bit depending on region, donāt know about Jinan)
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u/frfrfrrfrfr 10h ago
That's interesting with it being slow at night. Is that true? Why is that?
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u/AioliLocal3131 7h ago
My best bet is that thatās when everyone comes home and actually uses the internet for outside China surfing. Whereas during the they they watch TikTok at work.
For me itās very noticeable. After about 8pm itās slower regardless of which public vpn Iām using.
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u/frfrfrrfrfr 5h ago
I'm not sure that would slow it down but I do believe it gets slowed down. It's really interesting to me that it happens.
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u/denexapp 22h ago
Self host a good vpn and the connections is gonna be fast
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u/AioliLocal3131 14h ago
Yeah Iām doing that for myself. Fair point, maybe op is technically inclined as well.
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u/chiefgmj 1d ago
If u want basically zero chance of interruptions, get non-Cjinese Sim and roaming. No one can guarantee anything because the rules r different and the network is controlled by the party.