Netflix in China (and a few other sites)

[Steingletscher]

Can you get Netflix in China? I'm not sure how they check what country you are in but I'll be paying for it from my American bank, if that makes a difference. Even if they check IP addresses, I'll be watching from my Mac that I bought from the US (again, if that makes a difference since I don't know much about computers). Even if I am forced to reconcile with only a select amount of content, what is there? I've started watching Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, King of the Hill, Dollhouse, Lilyhammer, and I like the huge selection of random movies that is available in the US. What about Hulu too? Is it available?

What about the rest these sites that I visit a couple times a week:

Al Jazeera English

Russia Today

Business Insider

The Guardian

Foreign Policy

Democracy Now!

Last.fm

Wells Fargo

Rate Your Music

Sadly, the two sites I frequent the most are blocked. As for the ones listed above, I would rather try and circumvent the wall then give up using them.

[icebear]

Even if they check IP addresses, I'll be watching from my Mac that I bought from the US (again, if that makes a difference since I don't know much about computers).

Where you bought the computer is irrelevant, what matters is your IP address, which is tied the service provider you are using (i.e. yours will identify you as in China). Typically commercial streaming websites have restrictions on foreign IP addresses. A potential work around would be purchasing a VPN, which you can find info on elsewhere. That would also solve your access issues with news websites.

[yialanliu]

Due to licensing no Netflix or Pandora. Never tried Hulu but I'd bet it's the same thing in China.

If you go through a VPN, make sure it's a VPN in the US, not one that goes through Hong Kong as those probably won't work either.. When I tried using a US VPN, my internet connection got shot though and I couldn't stream without buffering every 2 seconds.

For news, Hong Kong VPNs work great.

[jbradfor]

And if you go with a VPN with an access point in the USA, ensure that it will allow you enough BW to stream movies. Even with that, it wouldn't surprise me if Netflix has a list of the (major) VPN companies and won't stream to them either, but that's just a guess and I have no evidence one way or another.

[djkasumi]

I use to work for Netflix customer service. The answer is no. As already stated, it is because of licensing issues and also (this part is speculative) because Netflix doesn't want to yet deal with the censureship that would need to happen to open up in China as well.

Also as stated, a VPN will work best if you are using one that has an IP address located in the country in which your Netflix account is set up for (US IP address for US account, Canadian IP address for Canadian account, etc).

If you care to know, I do recall that Netflix has been preparing to launch Watch Instantly in a greater number of countries (who knows how long that will take, though), but last I heard, Central and South American countries were going to be first.

[Takeshi]

Netflix and other streaming sites would not work, but I tested all of the other links you posted from inside China and they all seem to work for now. I wouldn't count on anything though.