How to use Chinese AI models from the United States

Developers in the United States 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 the United States"}]}'

Model pricing (official 2026)

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