Cloudflare China: Speed, Blocking and the China Network

What our traces showed

On October 13, 2026, at 08:06 China time, we ran traceroutes to this site, which Cloudflare serves, through Globalping probes on the three Chinese carriers. We used NextTrace’s --from option (how it works). The target was the site’s Cloudflare address, 104.21.46.8. A traceroute shows the path; it doesn’t download the page.

Carrier (probe)	Where the route left China	Cloudflare location reached	Time to this site
China Telecom (Guangzhou)	China Telecom’s 163 backbone to Amsterdam (202.97.13.26)	Amsterdam	229 ms
China Unicom (Changsha)	China Unicom’s China169 backbone to Los Angeles (219.158.33.194)	Los Angeles	179 to 244 ms
China Mobile (Taishan)	China Mobile International in Seattle (223.120.6.54)	Seattle	155 ms

Each carrier handed the traffic to Cloudflare where its own international network meets Cloudflare’s. For China Telecom that was Europe: the trace stayed on China Telecom’s backbone all the way to Amsterdam. None of the three reached Cloudflare in Asia.

These are single, off-peak runs to one site, so treat them as a snapshot. For comparison, in our ping measurements the same morning, a server in Taipei reached all three carriers in 42 to 56 ms.

Why Cloudflare sites are slow from China

Cloudflare says so itself. Its China Network documentation says that “Delivering content quickly and securely to users in Mainland China requires infrastructure within China itself”, and that “Traffic routed through servers outside the country faces significant latency and reliability issues”. It puts this down to “China’s network boundaries”.

The Cloudflare China Network

Cloudflare’s answer is a separate network inside mainland China:

• What it is: “running selected Cloudflare performance and security products on data centers located in Mainland China”, which “cover most populated regions in China”.
• Who runs the data centers: they are “operated by Cloudflare’s partner JD Cloud”.
• Plan: “available as a separate subscription for customers on an Enterprise plan”.
• ICP: “You must have a valid ICP (Internet Content Provider) filing or license for each apex domain.”
• IPv6: mandatory for internet-facing services in mainland China; the China Network turns it on for your domains.
• Content: “All the content inside of Mainland China is monitored by local authorities and must comply with local regulations.”
• Products: “Not all Cloudflare products are available in the Cloudflare China Network.”

China Express and Global Acceleration

People still search for Cloudflare China Express. Cloudflare’s China Express documentation page now describes Global Acceleration, “providing optimized network paths into and out of China”. Cloudflare says it “is provided by Cloudflare’s partners including China Mobile International (CMI), CBC Tech, and JD Cloud”. For CDN Global Acceleration, it says you need a Cloudflare Enterprise plan and the China Network.

Options without an ICP

Without an ICP filing, you can’t use the China Network. What you can control is where your site is hosted and how that host reaches each Chinese carrier:

• Measure before you choose. In our ping measurements, nearness didn’t decide speed. A Hong Kong server reached China Mobile in 32 ms but China Telecom in 329 ms; a Seoul server reached China Telecom in 25 ms but the other two in about 200 ms.
• Look for premium routes to the carriers your users are on: CN2 GIA for China Telecom, and CMIN2 or 9929 for China Mobile and China Unicom. See our CN2 GIA guide.
• Test from China, not only to China. Run nexttrace --from "AS4134" your.server.ip (and AS4837, AS9808) to see the route each carrier takes.