In my experience (3 months in Shanghai at the end of last year) AWS does occasionally get blocked or severely slowed down in China. I'd say it was inaccessible

In my experience (3 months in Shanghai at the end of last year) AWS does occasionally get blocked or severely slowed down in China. I'd say it was inaccessible about 5% of the time (for significant periods of time). You can of course run in the AWS Beijing region which requires you to have a Chinese business presence with a ICP license. It'll be interesting to see what happens now that Google is expanding its presence in China [1]. I ran into some Googlers on the Maps team while in Shanghai - not likely a coincidence. [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34698642 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34698642