Ping from our Hohhot node (AS37963, Alibaba Cloud) sends ICMP echo requests and records round-trip time. Baseline RTTs from this location: Beijing ~15–20 ms, Shanghai ~25–30 ms, Hong Kong ~45–55 ms, Tokyo ~65–80 ms, Singapore ~95–110 ms, Frankfurt ~170–195 ms, Los Angeles ~135–155 ms. These figures assume traffic is routing cleanly across the GFW border without congestion at the international gateway. During peak hours or periods of heavy GFW inspection, RTTs to foreign targets can spike by 20–40 ms above baseline.

Ping from China is a useful first-pass check for whether a foreign IP address is reachable from Chinese carrier networks at all. Some IP ranges — particularly those associated with VPN providers, Tor exit nodes, or services the GFW has flagged — receive no ICMP response even if the host is up. A zero-response result from our Hohhot node does not confirm the host is down; it may mean ICMP to that destination is being dropped at the border.

ICMP rate-limiting at transit hops is common on the Chinese international backbone. If ping from Hohhot shows elevated RTT but a TCP check on the same host succeeds, the discrepancy is likely ICMP deprioritization at one of the state carrier border routers rather than actual path congestion. Comparing ping results against the MTR output gives a more complete picture of where latency is actually accumulating.

China's public internet is controlled by three state-owned carriers: China Telecom (AS4134), China Unicom (AS4837), and China Mobile (AS9808). These three operators hold exclusive rights to international gateway capacity, meaning all traffic entering or leaving China passes through their border routers. There is no neutral open IX market comparable to DE-CIX or AMS-IX — domestic peering occurs through state-managed exchange points in Beijing and Shanghai rather than through independent, carrier-neutral facilities.

The Great Firewall (GFW) operates at the international gateway level, filtering and blocking traffic based on IP, SNI, and deep packet inspection. BGP routes announced inside China are not affected by the GFW for domestic paths, but any traffic destined for or arriving from non-Chinese IP space crosses inspection points at each carrier's border. This means latency measurements from inside China to foreign destinations include not only geographic RTT but also any queuing or inspection delay at the border routers.

Our probe node is located in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, running on Alibaba Cloud infrastructure (AS37963). Hohhot has become one of China's largest data center hubs due to cold climate reducing cooling costs and access to low-cost coal and wind electricity. Alibaba, China Telecom, and China Mobile all operate hyperscale facilities in the region. Hohhot connects to the rest of the Chinese backbone via China Telecom and Unicom long-haul fiber running east toward Beijing and south toward Shanghai.

International latency from China reflects both geography and the GFW border transit. Hohhot to Frankfurt runs approximately 170–195 ms over well-routed paths. Hohhot to London is around 180–200 ms. Hohhot to Los Angeles sits around 130–155 ms, as trans-Pacific cable capacity is better developed than China-Europe terrestrial routes. Within the Asia-Pacific region, Hohhot to Tokyo is approximately 60–80 ms and to Singapore around 90–110 ms. These figures vary by which state carrier handles the international segment.

Results from our Alibaba Cloud node in Hohhot reflect what a server looks like from inside Chinese state carrier infrastructure, specifically through AS37963 which peers with all three national carriers domestically. For sites targeting Chinese users, this is a meaningful test location — it shows whether your server is reachable from inside China, what latency Chinese users experience, and whether the GFW is affecting connectivity to your domain or IP range.