I am currently visiting China and everything you said is exactly what I've experienced. Using a VPN is the only way to get a working internet connection, but Ch

I am currently visiting China and everything you said is exactly what I've experienced. Using a VPN is the only way to get a working internet connection, but China is also blocking various popular VPN providers seemingly at random. You don't need to be doing anything questionable to feel the bite of the GFW, webpages with Facebook like buttons are enough to cause a 30 second delay while the connection times out in the background before the site loads. The censorship occurs at the TCP level, which is why pretty much only a VPN will help.