How to use Chinese AI models from India
Developers in India hit the same wall: China's best models (Doubao, Qwen, GLM, Hunyuan) are locked behind mainland accounts and RMB billing. Here is the working path.
The three walls
- Identity: official consoles often require a mainland phone/entity.
- Payment: China-only methods (Alipay/WeChat) you may not hold.
- Format: each vendor has its own API shape.
The fix: one OpenAI-compatible gateway
TideLink terminates the China-side account and payment, exposes a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and bills in USD. You keep your existing client.
curl https://tidelink.xyz/v1/llm -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" -d '{"provider":"auto","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hi from India"}]}'
Model pricing (official 2026)
| Model | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Doubao | ¥0.6/1M | ¥3.6/1M |
| Qwen | ¥0.3/1M | ¥0.6/1M |
| GLM | ¥0.6/1M | ¥0.6/1M |
| Hunyuan | ¥0.8/1M | ¥2/1M |
| DeepSeek | ¥1/1M | ¥2/1M |
| Kimi | ¥1/1M | ¥1/1M |
TideLink · TideLink is operated by Yuncheng Yanhu Beicheng Chaoxi Network Technology Studio, a sole proprietorship registered in Yuncheng, China (Unified Social Credit Code 92140802MAKM59LT6K), providing software development and IT integration services. Not a resale of third-party credentials.
中国注册主体：运城市盐湖区北城街道潮汐网络科技工作室（个体工商户，统一社会信用代码 92140802MAKM59LT6K）All guides
Get a free TideLink API key — call GLM, Qwen, DeepSeek and more through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint: https://tidelink.xyz/dashboard.html?cid=devto
