TL;DR: Most Brightcove‑hosted videos can be delivered to viewers in mainland China. However, certain platform features (including Playback API requests/responses and analytics beacons) may be intermittent without a China‑specific setup. Brightcove offers an official China delivery option built on a China‑hosted proxy plus an Alibaba Cloud CDN, where ICP license requirements apply if you use mainland infrastructure. Chinafy complements this by optimizing the full website and third‑party assets around the player so Brightcove‑powered pages load fast and fully in China.

What is Brightcove?

Brightcove is an enterprise cloud video platform for uploading, managing, and monetizing video content. Businesses can also use Brightcove to integrate and deliver video content on websites via a customizable embed or using a Brightcove-hosted landing page.

Does Brightcove work in mainland China?

Note: For the context of this article we will be discussing and speaking about Brightcove videos and hosted domains and not the backend platform used for managing the videos (www.brightcove.com).

To date, most Brightcove videos are able to be delivered in and outside of China. However, not all Brightcove features may perform the same in and outside of China. For example, essential communications, including Playback API requests and responses, and analytics beacons may be occasionally unreliable, and at times non-functional.

Brightcove does, however, offer a China-specific delivery option for optimized delivery through a partnership with global e-commerce giant Alibaba. Note: this option requires an ICP license and an approved domain or subdomain name listed on the ICP license.

Why websites using Brightcove can struggle to load in China

Even if Brightcove assets function sufficiently in some cases, video delivery is usually only part of the full website experience. Pages embedding a Brightcove player often include other third‑party resources, such as scripts, fonts, and trackers, that are slow or inconsistent in China.

Without leveraging Brightcove’s proxy server and China-specific CDN, pages can struggle to load due to China’s internet infrastructure, which 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.

How to make Brightcove work in mainland China

Brightcove’s native China solution

Brightcove provides an official two‑part configuration for China delivery:

A proxy server hosted within China,

A China‑specific CDN (Alibaba) connected to your account.

This makes Brightcove one of the few global video platforms with an approved path for on‑shore delivery. Note that subscriptions may include a minimum commitment/video‑library size.

Optimize the full website with Chinafy

A China CDN helps deliver static video assets, but it doesn’t handle any incompatible third‑party code that may be causing pages to load slowly or incompletely. Chinafy specifically addresses third-party resources that are creating issues for websites loading in China.

Chinafy generates a China‑optimized version of your site, detects and replaces blocked/slow resources (fonts, scripts, embeds), and routes China IP traffic to that optimized experience, all while keeping content in sync with your global site. This complements Brightcove’s video delivery path to ensure the entire site renders quickly and reliably for mainland China users.

See how your Brightcove videos load from China

You can use Chinafy’s Global Speed Test and Visual Speed Test to test any page that embeds Brightcove (or the Brightcove video player URL itself). Compare Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou metrics with your global baseline to see both time‑to‑first‑byte and page‑complete behavior.

Do I need an ICP license?

If you host in mainland China or use a China‑based CDN, like with Brightcove’s China-specific setup, you’ll need an ICP filing/license.

Note: ICP is a compliance prerequisite for operating in China on mainland infrastructure; it’s not a performance optimization by itself.

Brightcove can generally deliver video to viewers in mainland China, but reliability of platform features (e.g., Playback API responses and analytics beacons) and the rest of the page or website often determine the full performance. Brightcove offers a China proxy and Alibaba Cloud CDN to address infrastructure incompatibilities in mainland China. To ensure pages load fast and fully, use Chinafy to address both code-based and infrastructure-based incompatibilities.

Looking for ways to make your Brightcove pages load faster in China? Contact Chinafy for a website evaluation.