How can I play Ingress while in China?

Solution 1:

I am a Chinese citizen playing ingress.

Google services are restricted in China, modifying the host file might be a solution but I have not tried because this way doesn't last long. The Great Firewall sometimes blocks Google IPs directly.

VPN is much easier and you don't need to root you device. Many friends of mine are playing this game by VPN or shadowsocks. Google has not banned us for this reason so far. I think Google knows what's going on here.

Solution 2:

Roaming worked for me. It looks like that most restrictions are not applied to foreign users in the country.

My device is using a German sim card (Deutsche Telekom) and I had no problems playing Ingress in China.

The moment I switched to Wifi (like the hotel Wifi, or in the office), it stopped working.