How to Access Chinese AI Models Without a VPN (2026 Guide)

China has some of the best AI models in the world. DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, Doubao — these models compete with (and sometimes beat) GPT and Claude on benchmarks, at a fraction of the cost.

There's just one problem: they're designed for the Chinese market.

If you're outside China, you'll run into:

• 🚫 Registration requires a Chinese phone number
• 🚫 Payment requires Chinese bank accounts (Alipay/WeChat Pay)
• 🚫 Some APIs are geo-blocked or require a Chinese IP
• 🚫 Documentation is often Chinese-only

This guide covers every option for accessing Chinese AI models from anywhere in the world.

Option 1: Direct Registration (Hard Mode)

You can register directly with some providers:

DeepSeek

• Website: platform.deepseek.com
• Registration: Email works (no Chinese phone required!)
• Payment: International credit cards accepted
• Catch: API pricing is in RMB, occasional availability issues outside China

DeepSeek is the most accessible Chinese AI provider. If you only need DeepSeek models, direct registration works.

Qwen (Alibaba Cloud)

• Website: dashscope.aliyuncs.com
• Registration: Requires Alibaba Cloud account
• Payment: International cards accepted, but billing is complex
• Catch: Console is partially Chinese, docs are mixed language

Kimi (Moonshot)

• Website: platform.moonshot.cn
• Registration: Chinese phone number required ❌
• Catch: Basically inaccessible from abroad without a Chinese number

GLM (Zhipu)

• Website: open.bigmodel.cn
• Registration: Chinese phone number required ❌

Doubao (ByteDance)

• Website: volcengine.com
• Registration: Chinese phone number + business verification ❌
• Catch: Enterprise-only, complex onboarding

Bottom line: Only DeepSeek is realistically accessible directly. The rest need Chinese credentials.

Option 2: API Aggregators

Several services act as gateways to Chinese AI models:

Service	Models	Pricing	Payment
OpenRouter	Some Chinese models	Markup varies	Credit card
SiliconFlow	Chinese open-source	Competitive	Credit card
Dragonfly	30+ Chinese models	Wholesale pricing	Card + USDT

The advantage of aggregators: one account, one API key, one billing system for all models.

Option 3: Dragonfly (Recommended)

Dragonfly is purpose-built for this exact use case: giving international developers access to Chinese AI models.

What you get:

• 30+ models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, Doubao, MiniMax, and more)
• OpenAI-compatible API (change one line of code)
• USD pricing (credit card or USDT)
• No VPN, no Chinese phone number, no hassle

Quick Setup

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://dragonfly-api.com/v1",
    api_key="sk-df-your-key"  # Get at dragonfly-api.com
)

# Use any Chinese model
models = {
    "deepseek": "deepseek/deepseek-chat",
    "qwen": "qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b",
    "kimi": "moonshot/kimi-k2",
    "glm": "zhipu/glm-5-0131",
    "doubao": "doubao/doubao-1.5-pro-256k",
}

for name, model_id in models.items():
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model=model_id,
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from outside China!"}]
    )
    print(f"{name}: {response.choices[0].message.content[:100]}")

One API key. Five different Chinese AI providers. Works from anywhere.

Which Chinese AI Model Should You Use?

Use Case	Recommended Model	Why
General chat/coding	DeepSeek V3	Best value, strong all-around
Complex reasoning	DeepSeek R1	Chain-of-thought, competitive with o1
Long documents	Kimi K2	Excellent long-context handling
Multilingual tasks	Qwen3-235B	Strong across languages
Cheapest option	Doubao 1.5 Pro	$0.30/1M tokens, good enough for simple tasks
Multimodal (vision)	GLM-5	Image understanding built-in
Video generation	Wan2.1 (Qwen)	Text-to-video
Image generation	Janus Pro 7B	Text-to-image

Pricing Comparison

Model	Via Dragonfly	Direct (if available)	vs GPT-4o ($2.50)
DeepSeek V3	$0.27/1M	¥1.00/1M (~$0.14)	89% cheaper
Qwen3-235B	$1.00/1M	Complex billing	60% cheaper
Kimi K2	$1.00/1M	Not available abroad	60% cheaper
Doubao 1.5 Pro	$0.30/1M	Not available abroad	88% cheaper

FAQ

Is this legal? Yes. You're accessing commercial APIs through a licensed gateway service.

Will my data go through China? Yes — the AI models run on Chinese servers. Your requests are routed through Dragonfly's gateway to the provider and back. Dragonfly does not store your prompts or completions.

Is it reliable? Dragonfly monitors all providers and routes around outages. Individual Chinese providers occasionally have downtime; the gateway layer helps mitigate this.

Can I use this in production? Yes. Many developers use Chinese AI models for production workloads, especially cost-sensitive ones like autocomplete, embeddings, and batch processing.

Getting Started

1. Sign up at Dragonfly — 30 seconds, $1 free credit
2. Generate an API key
3. Set base_url to https://dragonfly-api.com/v1
4. Pick a model from the model list

The Chinese AI ecosystem is one of the best-kept secrets in tech. Now you can access it.

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Dragonfly — China's best AI models, one API.