“The Chinese market is huge and can be enticing for many business owners, but a visit to China can threaten your business if you aren’t careful.
Your valuable intellectual property and other proprietary information could be vulnerable to electronic snooping. Entrepreneurs report incidents of laptops and other devices being tampered with in customs and when left in hotel rooms in China. They also have seen signs that e-mail, Internet use and phone conversations may have been subject to surveillance.”
I’ve never had any physical tampering with my devices in China, but VPN is a must for any business traveler. They block so many sites now (strangely, not FR yet - guess we are too small to bother with) that you can’t get any work done without it.