12 Legal Ways to Access Foreign LLMs from China (2026 Test)

Definition of “no need to bypass firewall”

Three situations are distinguished:

Domestic direct access – API endpoints or web portals have acceleration nodes inside China, allowing seamless connectivity.

Web UI blocked, API usable – The website may require a proxy, but the API can be called directly.

Domestic substitutes – Chinese vendors provide APIs with performance comparable to or better than foreign models, at very low cost.

The focus is on the first and third categories.

Category A – Domestic direct‑access platforms (no VPN required)

SiliconFlow

Access: domestic direct. Site: siliconflow.cn. Free quota: new users receive tokens for models such as DeepSeek‑V3.

SiliconFlow aggregates major models (DeepSeek, Qwen, ChatGLM) with an OpenAI‑compatible API.

Python example:

from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="your-siliconflow-key",
    base_url="https://api.siliconflow.cn/v1"
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "用Python写一个快速排序"}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Zhipu AI Open Platform (GLM)

Access: domestic direct. Site: open.bigmodel.cn. Free quota: daily free tokens.

GLM‑4 series is widely used in China, offers complete documentation and supports function calling.

Alibaba Cloud Bailei / Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen)

Access: domestic direct. Site: bailian.console.aliyun.com. Free quota: new‑user trial tokens.

Qwen models are flagship open‑source Chinese LLMs with extensive community adoption; Bailei also integrates many third‑party models.

DeepSeek API

Access: domestic direct. Site: platform.deepseek.com. Free quota: 5 million tokens for new users (valid 30 days).

DeepSeek‑V3 and DeepSeek‑R1 rank highly on global leaderboards; post‑free pricing is a few yuan per million tokens.

Moonshot (Kimi)

Access: domestic direct. Site: platform.moonshot.cn. Free trial quota available.

Kimi supports up to 1 million tokens of context, suitable for long‑document summarization and multi‑turn dialogues.

Xiaomi MiMo

Access: domestic direct. Site: platform.xiaomimimo.com. Limited‑time free offering.

Backed by Xiaomi’s compute resources, positioned for inference testing and early‑adopter experiments.

Category C – Domestic substitutes with top‑tier performance

Typical scenarios and recommended Chinese models:

General chat – DeepSeek‑V3 or Qwen3 (performance comparable to GPT‑4o).

Deep reasoning – DeepSeek‑R1 (matches o1 in math and code reasoning).

Code generation – DeepSeek‑Coder or Qwen‑Coder (specialized optimizations).

Chinese content creation – GLM‑4 or Kimi (better Chinese language tuning).

Ultra‑long context – Kimi (1 M token context, no competitor).

Multimodal understanding – Qwen‑VL or GLM‑4V (strong multimodal capabilities).

International platforms with free tiers (partial domestic accessibility)

Groq

Site: groq.com. Free tier: Llama 3.3 70B / Llama 4 Scout, ~14 400 requests per day.

Custom LPU hardware delivers >800 tokens/s, the fastest known free inference service.

Python example:

from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="your-groq-key",
    base_url="https://api.groq.com/openai/v1"
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="llama-3.3-70b-versatile",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "解释什么是Transformer架构"}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Cerebras

Site: cerebras.ai. Free tier: 1 million tokens daily.

Wafer‑scale engines provide very high token‑per‑second throughput, suited for batch inference and multi‑step agent workflows.

GitHub Models

Site: github.com/models. Free tier includes GPT‑4o, GPT‑4.1, Grok‑3 with 50‑150 daily requests. Login with a GitHub account; no credit card required.

Google AI Studio

Site: aistudio.google.com. Free tier: Gemini 2.5 Pro / Flash, 250 K TPM daily.

Gemini 2.5 Flash offers up to 1 M token context, multimodal input, and OpenAI‑compatible API.

OpenRouter

Site: openrouter.ai. Free models include Qwen 3.6 Plus (zero cost) and Qwen3 Coder (zero cost). Registration grants free credits.

Python example:

from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="your-openrouter-key",
    base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen/qwen3.6-plus:free",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "用Python写快速排序"}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Cohere

Site: cohere.com. Free tier: 1 000 requests per month.

Specializes in Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) with end‑to‑end pipelines (generation + vector embedding + re‑ranking).

Scenario‑based service selection

Everyday chat & writing – SiliconFlow (DeepSeek‑V3) or Zhipu GLM.

Deep reasoning & thinking – DeepSeek‑R1.

AI code assistant – DeepSeek‑Coder or OpenRouter Qwen3 Coder.

Long‑document analysis (100 k+ words) – Kimi (1 M context) or Gemini 2.5 Flash.

Multimodal (image, audio, video) – Gemini 2.5 Flash or Zhipu GLM‑4V.

Low‑latency real‑time bot – Groq (Llama 3.3 70B, >800 t/s).

Free GPT‑4o access – GitHub Models free tier.

RAG knowledge‑base – Cohere free tier.

Batch processing of massive text – Cerebras (1 M token/day free).

Minimize API cost – DeepSeek (generous free quota, low post‑free pricing).

Quick start: three steps for a first call (SiliconFlow example)

Register at siliconflow.cn, complete real‑name verification, obtain an API key.

Install the SDK: pip install openai Write three lines of code to invoke the model:

from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="your‑API‑key",
    base_url="https://api.siliconflow.cn/v1"
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "你好，介绍一下你自己"}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

These steps unlock a lifelong free quota.

Conclusion

Domestic models (DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi) are mature in 2026 and often match or exceed foreign services for Chinese‑centric or specialized tasks. Among international providers, Groq’s speed, GitHub Models’ convenience, and OpenRouter’s model breadth are notable free entry points. The practical path is to try the services directly rather than relying on VPNs.