There’s a certain “people’s republic” where they introduced a new government signature on all android apps. For “safety”, as they “check” the apps for you 😉
For now it can be bypassed after three pages of scary warnings but in the future?
Maybe it could be a big reason of why they’re liking harmony os that much, you don’t need to manually approve android apps if android apps are completely unsupported
That’s only on their local android varieties though. That looks like a Xiaomi/Redmi phone? In that case head over to xiaomi.eu, download the EU version of the ROM, and flash it following the instructions there, it’s very straightforward.
With Oppo and OnePlus phones it’s equally simple, there are a ton of how-to’s over on https://forum.xda-developers.com/ for all models. If you stay in China, best get their Indian ROMs, the EU ones have some mobile bands inactive that are not in use there, but are in Asia.
For other phone manufacturers, it’s anywhere between trivial and impossible (Huawei for example). Xda-dev is your best source of info usually.
More recent Xiaomi phones for the Chinese market have locked bootloaders. Their European counterparts can still be unlocked, but they have tightened that as well, supposedly because the CCP told them to.
Typing this on a Poco F6.
Crap. I got OnePlus 7 pro and 10 pro in China and could still unlock them easily, haven’t checked since.
Global users can unlock Xiaomi phones, but have to jump through more hoops and deal with restrictions. For example, there now seems to be a daily limit on how many devices their server accepts to unlock. Took me three tries to be successful in the “first come, first serve” line.
Afaik, Chinese users are now dependent on paid services to unlock their phonew for them. How they get around the official restrictions? I don’t know.
I mean, there are sellers on Taobao and such that sell imported versions from HK and Japan, but I doubt that’s what the majority does. Most locals probably never get tempted to install some Western apps that won’t work without a VPN anyway, and if they have the knowledge and skills to install and use one, they know what to look for.