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The Real Problem

Every week I see developers asking the same question: "How do I use DeepSeek API from outside China?"

The official answer is always some variation of:

Try a Chinese friend's phone number (not practical)
Use Wise → Alipay workaround (complex, fees eat savings)
Go through a reseller (2-10x markup)

But there's a simpler answer now.

Token China: Free Trial, No Phone Required

Token China gives you 100,000 free tokens the moment you sign up. No credit card. No Chinese phone. Just connect your GitHub account and start coding.

What You Get Free

Tier	Tokens	How
Signup Bonus	100K	Create account via GitHub
Referral Bonus	+100K	Each friend who joins via your invite link
Referrer Bonus	+100K	For the friend you referred

That's enough to run thousands of API calls and decide if it works for you.

What's Under the Hood

Token China is an OpenAI-compatible gateway for Chinese LLMs:

Model	Type	Best For
DeepSeek V4 Pro	Reasoning	Complex coding, math, analysis
DeepSeek V4 Flash	Chat	Fast daily use, low cost
GLM 5.1	General	Tool calling, Chinese tasks
GLM 5V Turbo	Vision	OCR, image analysis

Same API format. One key for all four.

Quick Start (30 Seconds)

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key="sk-your-key",
    base_url="https://token-china.cc/v1"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-v4-flash",
    messages=[{"role":"user","content":"Hello!"}]
)

Works with LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenWebUI, LobeChat, NextChat — anything that speaks OpenAI format.

Why I Built This

I got tired of the runaround. Every Chinese AI provider requires a local phone number for verification. Every workaround is fragile. So I set up a VPS in Singapore, built a Go-based API gateway, and made it available to anyone with a GitHub account.

The stack: Go backend + React frontend on Vultr Singapore. ~18MB RAM idle. No bloat.