How to communicate with friends in China from abroad
WhatsApp, Google and Instagram are blocked in China, so most people use WeChat. Here is how to stay in touch with friends in China, and what to watch for.
The simplest way to communicate with friends in China is WeChat. It is the app almost everyone in mainland China uses for messages, voice and video calls, and group chats, and it works both inside China and abroad. Many apps people in the West rely on, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Google's services, are blocked in mainland China, so your friends usually cannot use them without a VPN. Plain phone calls and SMS also work, and email is a fallback. Some people in China use VPNs to reach blocked apps, but that is their choice to make, not yours to push. Below I go through the options, what each is good for, and a few things to know before you set them up.
Why this is harder than it should be
I am Armenian-Iranian and I live in Los Angeles. Iranians know this problem well. Inside Iran, many of the apps the rest of the world uses are filtered, and families learn to keep a short list of what works this month. China is a bigger and more settled version of the same thing. The system that blocks foreign services there is often called the Great Firewall, and it has been in place for many years.
So the question is not really "which app is best." It is "which app can my friend actually open, without trouble, from where they are."
One note before I start. I am not an expert on Chinese law, and I cannot test from inside China. Everything below is based on what is widely and consistently reported. If your friend tells you something different about what works for them, believe your friend.
The main options
WeChat, made by Tencent, is the default in mainland China. People use it for everything: chatting, calls, groups, payments, reading news, booking things. If you have a friend in China, there is a very good chance they already have it and would be happy for you to add them.
How to set it up from abroad: download WeChat from your app store and sign up with your phone number. Sign-up can sometimes ask for verification, and in some cases an existing user has to confirm you. Having your friend in China ready to help at sign-up time makes this much easier.
Good for: reaching almost anyone in China. Voice messages, video calls and group chats with family.
Things to know: WeChat operates under Chinese law. It is widely reported that messages on WeChat can be monitored and filtered, and that sensitive topics can get messages blocked or accounts restricted. Your friend is the one who lives with the consequences. Keep that in mind when you choose what to talk about. This is not a reason to avoid WeChat, just a reason to be thoughtful.
Phone calls and SMS
Ordinary international calls and text messages still work between most countries and China. They cost more than app calls, depending on your carrier, but they are simple and do not depend on any app being allowed.
Good for: emergencies, older relatives, and anyone who does not want another app.
Email to and from China generally works, though Gmail itself is blocked in mainland China. If your friend uses a Chinese email provider, or another provider that is reachable there, you can write to them normally.
Good for: long letters, sharing documents, and conversations that do not need to be instant.
Blocked apps and VPNs
WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and Google's services are blocked in mainland China. Telegram and Signal have also been reported as blocked. Some people in China use VPNs to reach these apps anyway. VPN use sits in a legal grey area there, and the rules are enforced unevenly.
My view: this is a decision for the person in China. Do not pressure a friend to install a VPN so they can use the app you prefer. Meet them on what already works for them.
Visitors with foreign SIM cards
Here is something many travelers do not know. If you visit China and use a SIM card or eSIM from a carrier outside China, your data is often routed back through your home country. In that case, many blocked apps can work for you while you are there. This is widely reported by travelers, but it depends on the carrier and plan, so check before you go. Your friends living there will not have this, because they use local SIM cards.
When you do not share a language
A lot of people searching this question are not trying to reach Chinese friends who speak English. They are trying to talk to a friend, a partner's family, or a colleague where one side speaks Mandarin or Cantonese and the other does not.
WeChat has built-in message translation, which helps a lot for text. For calls, many people use a translation app on the side, or type and translate as they go. It is clumsy, but it works.
Take it slowly. Short sentences translate better than long ones. Avoid slang and jokes that depend on wordplay. When something important comes up, like a date, a price or an address, confirm it twice in simple words.
Where Hashti fits, and where it does not
I built Hashti, so I want to be clear about what it is and is not in this situation.
Hashti is a free chat app for adults, 18 and over. It has public chat rooms with names and topics, private chats, calls and a walkie-talkie mode. Its paid feature, Hashti Plus, adds live translation in 29 languages, so two people can type in their own language and read each other in theirs. It costs $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and everything else is free.
But for staying in touch with friends inside mainland China, Hashti is not my first recommendation. I have not tested whether it works reliably from inside China, and I would not promise that it does. It is on the App Store now, the Android version is in a closed test, and I do not want you to set up a family group on it and then find your friend in Shanghai cannot connect.
Where I think it can help is with the wider community. If you are learning Mandarin, looking for Chinese speakers living abroad, or want to practice talking across a language gap with people who chose to be there, public rooms and translation are useful for that. Every account can be verified against a government ID, and unverified accounts cannot host rooms, speak in voice rooms or message strangers, which I think makes meeting new people safer. You can read how that works on the Hashti safety page.
For your actual friends in China: use WeChat.
A simple setup that works for most people
If I were setting this up for my own family, here is what I would do.
1. Install WeChat and add your friend while they are on the phone with you, in case sign-up needs their help. 2. Save their phone number and email as a backup, in case WeChat has trouble. 3. Agree on a regular time to talk, because the time difference with China is large from the Americas and Europe. China uses one time zone for the whole country. 4. If you do not share a language, turn on WeChat's message translation and keep sentences short. 5. Let them decide what topics are comfortable to discuss on WeChat.
Things I would avoid
Do not send a friend in China links to blocked sites and expect them to open. They probably cannot, and it can be awkward.
Do not assume that because an app works for you while visiting, it will work for your friend at home. Foreign SIM routing is the reason, and locals do not have it.
Do not treat any one article, including this one, as the final word. The situation changes. When in doubt, ask your friend what works for them this month.
My honest take
Staying close to someone in China is very doable. It just means meeting them where they are. For almost everyone, that means WeChat, with phone and email as backups. The effort is small: one new app, a little patience with sign-up, and some care about what you say on it.
I know from my own family that the apps are never really the point. The point is hearing someone's voice on a Sunday. Pick the tool that makes that easy for them, and keep it simple.
Hashti is free, and it is 18+. Hashti Plus — live translation, writing help and catch-ups — is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and nothing else costs anything. How rooms work is on the rooms page, and how reports and the ID check work is on the safety page.