TideLink Guides

Field notes for developers building with China's AI stack from outside mainland China — LLMs, Maps, and SMS, without a CN phone number or China-only payment.

How to use Chinese LLMs (Doubao, Qwen, GLM, Hunyuan) from outside China

The three walls every overseas developer hits, and the gateway fix.

Doubao API guide for English-speaking developers

ByteDance's flagship model, called from an OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Qwen API: accessing Alibaba's models from abroad

Why Qwen is the cost-performance king and how to reach it without Alipay.

Sending SMS to Chinese phone numbers as an overseas developer

The +86 problem, solved with a single REST call.

China geocoding API for developers (Amap / Baidu alternative)

Turn addresses into coordinates and back, no mainland entity required.

Chinese LLM API pricing comparison (2026)

Doubao vs Qwen vs GLM vs Hunyuan — per-million-token breakdown.

OpenAI-compatible China models: a drop-in guide

Swap base_url and keep your existing client. No rewrites.

By model

Doubao API for overseas developers

ByteDance's flagship, called from an OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Qwen API for overseas developers

Alibaba's cost-performance king, no Alipay required.

GLM API for overseas developers

Zhipu's GLM-4, with a permanent free tier.

Hunyuan API for overseas developers

Tencent's model, hunyuan-lite fully free.

DeepSeek API for overseas developers

The open-weight favorite, via aggregation.

Kimi API for overseas developers

Moonshot's long-context specialist.

By use case

Best Chinese LLM for chatbots

2026 shortlist + one-key fix.

Chinese↔English translation models

Bilingual quality without a CN account.

Chinese LLM for RAG

Retrieval-augmented generation, called abroad.

Chinese LLM for code generation

Qwen and DeepSeek for coding tasks.

Chinese LLM for AI agents

Tool-calling and planning from one endpoint.

By region

Use Chinese AI from the United States

No CN phone, USD billing.

Use Chinese AI from India

Low-latency access guide.

Use Chinese AI from Brazil

Portuguese-adjacent devs welcome.

Use Chinese AI from Germany

GDPR-friendly setup notes.

Use Chinese AI from Mexico

LatAm Spanish-market entry.

Comparisons

Doubao vs Qwen

Which China LLM for overseas devs?

DeepSeek vs Qwen

Open-weight showdown.

GLM vs Hunyuan

Two free-tier contenders.

Skip the setup. Get one key.

TideLink wraps every model above behind a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint, with free sign-up credit.

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