I mentioned astrill too, they do pretty well.

Vpns are working in Ningbo, Tianjin, urumqi, Chengdu, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, xian right now, idk, I haven't seen or heard of the problems you're describing, but I'm heading back over for the new year this year, so I'll check.

I think failing to block increasing, constant vpn use around the north, South, east, West, and center of a country for a decade despite constantly declaring vpns illegal and banned and stopped by government firewalls counts as zero practical success, yes.