Claude Code in China — Anthropic-compatible, no VPN

Anthropic's Claude Code is one of the strongest AI coding agents available. The problem: reaching Anthropic's API from Mainland China is slow and unreliable, and you need a foreign credit card. Router One solves both.

Direct access, no VPN

Based on the China latency benchmark last updated 2026-05-15, Router One measured 110-130ms p50 across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen; individual networks may vary. Claude Code uses the Anthropic-compatible endpoint at https://api.router.one.

Pay in RMB

Top up with WeChat Pay, Alipay, Stripe, or USDT/USDC on six networks. No foreign credit card required.

Paid-usage headroom

No low fixed cap for normal paid usage. Abuse prevention, per-account protection limits, and upstream constraints may still apply; if a request returns 429, check Dashboard -> Logs or contact support to raise limits.

Measured latency: VPN vs Router One

Based on the China latency benchmark last updated 2026-05-15, Router One measured 110-130ms p50 across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen; individual networks may vary.

City	VPN (direct)	Router One
Shanghai	620 ms · 12% timeout	120 ms · 0% timeout
Beijing	580 ms · 8% timeout	110 ms · 0% timeout
Shenzhen	700 ms · 15% timeout	130 ms · 0% timeout

View the benchmark source

2-minute setup

If you have Claude Code installed, export three variables and relaunch. Persistent setup: add these lines to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc.

1Create a Router One API keySign up at router.one and create an API key in the dashboard. Top up with WeChat Pay, Alipay, Stripe, or USDT/USDC — no foreign credit card required.
2Point Claude Code at Router OneExport ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.router.one, plus ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN set to your Router One key. Add the lines to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc to persist them.
3Relaunch Claude CodeRestart Claude Code. Requests now route through Router One's China-reachable, Anthropic-compatible endpoint with no VPN.

terminal

# Point Claude Code at Router One
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.router.one
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-your-router-one-key
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=sk-your-router-one-key

Read the complete guide

FAQ

Do I need a VPN?

Based on the China latency benchmark last updated 2026-05-15, Router One measured 110-130ms p50 across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen; individual networks may vary. No proxy or VPN is required for the Router One endpoint.

How does billing work?

Use prepaid wallet balance or a live subscription plan. Top up via WeChat Pay, Alipay, Stripe, or USDT/USDC — usage outside plan coverage is still metered per token.

Is my data stored?

No. Router One proxies requests in real time; prompts and completions are not persisted. We log only metadata (model, tokens, latency, cost) for billing and observability.

What if the upstream Anthropic API goes down?

Claude Code traffic routes through Router One's infrastructure with automatic failover. When upstream issues occur, requests are retried or redirected transparently.

Start using Claude Code in China

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