What if operating in China didn’t require a separate architecture?
For global enterprises, China is too important and too complex to ignore. Whether you’re already operating there or considering expansion, China introduces unique connectivity, security, and compliance challenges that most global architectures aren’t equipped to handle. Infrastructure gaps, regulatory demands, and inconsistent user experience combine to make China uniquely challenging for IT and security leaders. Delays in accessing applications, unpredictable network behavior, and the need to maintain separate controls and configurations for China slow down IT teams and increase overhead.
This isn’t just about unreliable bandwidth or policy complexity. It’s about architectural debt. Most legacy architectures weren’t designed to meet the demands of distributed IT, especially in highly regulated, performance-sensitive regions like China. As a result, teams are forced to stitch together point solutions, troubleshoot regional outages, and maintain entirely separate toolsets for a single geography.
Why legacy vendors can’t deliver
Legacy vendors treat China as an edge case – patched together through local ISPs, partner-run backbones, and compliance workarounds. Instead of simplifying operations, they create complexity that’s brittle, costly, and hard to secure. These limitations show up in four familiar ways:
- DIY cross-border connectivity requires manual provisioning, complex contracts, and fragile compliance
- Unreliable performance results from public internet routing and no SLA-backed guarantees
- Fragmented security means inspection is offloaded or inconsistent across regions
- Operationally taxing deployments involve vendor sprawl, duplicated policies, and multiple consoles
The result? China becomes a high-cost outlier in the enterprise architecture—slowing global initiatives, increasing risk exposure, and forcing teams to build a parallel stack just to stay compliant.
Cato delivers seamless, compliant China connectivity
Cato simplifies China connectivity by eliminating region-specific architectures and workarounds. Enterprises gain consistent performance, in-country enforcement, and built-in compliance, all delivered through a single platform. SLA-backed PoPs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen connect seamlessly to Cato’s global private backbone, with optimized egress via Hong Kong. The result is a converged architecture that treats China like any other region, without sacrificing control, visibility, or regulatory alignment.
Reliable cross-border connectivity
Enable seamless access into and out of China without MPLS delays or contract sprawl. Cato eliminates the need to coordinate with regional ISPs or build VPN overlays. SLA-backed PoPs avoid public internet unpredictability and Great Firewall bottlenecks. Connectivity is simple, fast, and always available.
Optimized network performance
Cato’s backbone uses real-time network conditions to dynamically select the optimal path, avoiding congestion, Great Firewall delays, and public internet variability. With 99.999% SLA backed uptime, performance remains consistent, and policy enforcement is reliable across China and beyond.
Full-stack security, enforced in-country
Security policies are enforced directly inside China, not after the fact. Cato inspects traffic in-line at its local PoPs before it leaves the region. Threats are blocked closer to the source, and sensitive data stays protected. With built-in ZTNA, DLP, SWG, and CASB, protection follows the traffic, reducing exposure and response times. Built-in compliance
Cato turns compliance into a continuous process, not a point-in-time scramble. ZTNA, DLP, and traffic inspection are always on and always logged locally, helping enterprises meet China’s Cybersecurity Law with fewer tools and less effort. Because enforcement and logging occur inside China, audit preparation is faster and aligned to regulatory expectations. Risk goes down without adding operational overhead.
One global policy engine
One console manages global access and enforcement, including China. Cato’s single policy engine eliminates duplicated configurations and regional blind spots. Enterprises can roll out updates confidently, enforce controls consistently, and prove compliance without maintaining a separate China stack.
One platform. No carve-outs.
Cato eliminates the need to manage China as a separate environment. With SLA-backed PoPs, built-in security, and centralized policy control, global teams can manage all sites and users through a single platform, eliminating the need for duplicated tools, special-case enforcement, or regional workarounds.
With Cato, China becomes just another region in the network: secure, compliant, and high performing. IT teams don’t have to manage local firewalls, patch around fragile VPNs, or track policy exceptions. There’s no need to negotiate with regional partners or maintain bespoke audit processes.
Instead of working around China, teams can focus on delivering what’s next. New sites can be activated in hours once the local internet is in place. Security and compliance stay consistent everywhere, without duplicating effort or infrastructure, all from the same platform that powers your global network.
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