Many businesses assume that if their website is compliant, it will automatically perform well in China. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Compliance doesn’t guarantee performance and performance challenges in China can impact any website, regardless of where it’s hosted.

That’s why businesses looking to reach users in China need to address both. And when it comes to performance, that’s exactly where Chinafy helps.

TL;DR: Performance and compliance are two critical but different considerations when it comes to websites in China. Performance refers to how fast, fully, and reliably your website loads for users in China. Compliance refers to meeting legal and regulatory requirements to operate in China, such as obtaining an ICP license.

What’s the difference between performance and compliance in China?

When it comes to making your website work in China, two factors are often confused:

Performance: How fast, fully, and reliably your website loads for users in China.

Compliance: Whether your website meets the necessary legal and regulatory requirements to operate in China, such as obtaining an ICP license.

The confusion exists because many assume that the reason their website doesn’t work in China is because they haven’t fulfilled China’s compliance requirements.

But achieving compliance doesn’t guarantee strong performance. Why?

Why China compliance doesn’t guarantee performance

Compliance (like ICP licenses, onshore hosting, or using a China CDN) ensures legal access to operate in China but it doesn't guarantee website performance or functionality. That's because performance challenges in China are primarily technical, not just regulatory.

China compliance focuses on legality, not optimization

Depending on your business, China web compliance may include:

Acquiring an ICP license

Hosting onshore (in mainland China)

Using a Chinese CDN (like Alibaba Cloud or Tencent Cloud)

These primarily help reduce regulatory risk. But they don't address the technical fragmentation of the Chinese internet.

China's internet infrastructure is complex:

It affects many foreign third-party resources (Google Fonts, YouTube embeds, Vimeo, Stripe, etc.), causing them to load slowly, incompletely, or not at all.

Cross-border content can experience high latency, packet loss, or outright failure.

Even locally hosted sites can break if they load non-China-friendly scripts, APIs, or assets.

And compliance alone cannot fix these performance issues.

What causes web performance issues in China?

Performance issues for websites in China come from a mix of infrastructure and technology fragmentation. Let’s break down the most common causes:

Code incompatibility

Most, if not all, modern websites tend to contain a wide range of functionality. This functionality is largely enabled by Websites built with third-party platforms resources – such as Google APIs, Facebook trackers, YouTube videos and hundreds of lesser-known companies. Unfortunately, many of these resources are incompatible resources – encounter delays or even fail to load in China.

Some of these resources may be blocked by China, while others are slow-loading or non-performant because of China’s internet environment.

When a browser tries to retrieve blocked or restricted content, it gets “stuck,” which can lead to delays of 30 seconds or more.

Infrastructure incompatibility

Hosting your website outside of China creates additional latency due to the physical distance between your servers and the end users in China. China’s internet infrastructure operates through a small number of state-affiliated ISPs with limited international interconnectivity and strict network controls. These factors create additional layers of congestion, packet loss, and unpredictable latency, making performance optimization for China uniquely complex compared to other regions.

Even with global, leading CDN providers, the majority do not have Points of Presence (PoPs) by default inside China and so the distance still slows down site performance. Even if they do have Points of Presence inside of China, they’re not automatically included in your CDN package as you would still have to fulfill certain pre-requisites in order to leverage them.

How to improve web speed and performance for China visitors

A complete solution to web performance in China addresses both:

The infrastructure layer: for example, you could choose to use a multi-CDN to optimize delivery for China.

Third party resource handling: identify and handle any slow-loading or blocked resources.

Read more about optimizing web performance in China

Why offshore websites can still perform well in China

Hosting offshore doesn’t automatically mean poor performance (or non-compliant for that matter).

Many businesses prefer offshore hosting because it can be faster to deploy, easier to manage, and doesn’t require an ICP license. However, wherever your website is hosted, it’s likely that it will need additional optimization to work reliably for users in China.

That’s what Chinafy helps with, enabling even offshore websites to achieve near-native onshore performance without rebuilding or migrating their existing setup.

Questions to ask before optimizing your website for China

Whether or not you need to pursue certain compliance and performance requirements depends largely on your business goals, industry, and operational plans in China.

Some questions to consider when choosing what’s right for your business:

Is China your core market or an exploratory one?

Are you planning to sell products, offer services, or just build brand awareness?

Where is your website currently hosted?

Do you use a CDN and does it have PoPs near to or inside China?

Does your website heavily rely on any third-party resources like Google Firebase, Shopify or Vimeo?

Do you have a China business entity?

Are you planning to host inside China?

Can you dedicate resources to managing Chinese regulatory requirements (ICP, cybersecurity law, PIPL)?

Do you have bandwidth to manage a second website in China?

*Disclaimer: This guide is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Chinafy is not a legal or corporate advisory entity, and, given that every business is different, we suggest consulting with your internal legal counsel if you would like advice on any legal or compliance-related concerns, or alternatively we can connect you with one of our partners.

Regardless of whether your site is hosted onshore or offshore, performance will impact user experience, brand loyalty and market success in China. Slow, broken, or incomplete sites lead to lost trust, poor engagement, and missed opportunities.

How Chinafy helps websites perform better in China

Chinafy specializes in helping businesses overcome the unique performance challenges of the China internet environment. We can also connect you with our trusted partners for compliance and legal advice.

Chinafy optimizes both infrastructure and code to deliver faster, more complete web experiences for users in Mainland China without requiring businesses to rebuild their websites or change their existing workflows.

With Chinafy, businesses can expect:

Faster load times (6-8x improvements on average)

Higher resource load success rates (often improving from <30% to >95%)

A near-native experience for users in China

Performance and compliance are often discussed interchangeably when it comes to websites in China but they’re not the same:

Compliance ensures your website meets regulatory requirements.

Performance ensures your website actually works for your users.

Both are important but businesses shouldn’t assume that one guarantees the other. Regardless of your compliance strategy, ensuring fast, fully-loaded web experiences for users in China is critical and that’s where Chinafy can help. Contact us today for more information.