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Using Claude Code from mainland China

Last updated: October 27, 2026

Claude Code itself installs fine in mainland China; the account, payment and network behind it are the hard part. This page explains why the official service does not work there and how to use genuine Claude through CoreCode, with no overseas account or foreign card and no proxy.

Why the official service does not work

Claude Code needs a Claude subscription or an Anthropic API key, and sends requests to api.anthropic.com. From mainland China there are three obstacles:

How a relay solves it

Claude Code can send its requests to another address through ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. A relay holds official Anthropic accounts outside China: your Claude Code sends requests to the relay, the relay forwards them unchanged to Anthropic and returns the reply. You need only a relay key, and you pay and connect from within China.

Relays differ a lot in quality: some swap in cheaper models, some never hit the cache and end up costing more than Anthropic. See How to choose a relay and Check a relay is genuine.

Connect with CoreCode

1. Install Claude Code

   On macOS, Linux and WSL run curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash; in Windows PowerShell run irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex. If the download is slow or fails, use npm instead: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code (Node.js 22 or later; a mainland npm mirror helps). Windows details are in Claude Code on Windows.

2. Sign up, top up, create a key

   Sign in on the sign-in page with Google, LinuxDO or an email code. Top up in Wallet with Alipay or WeChat Pay: ¥1 buys $1 of credit, and the newcomer pack is ¥29.9 for $50. Then create a key on the API keys page in the Claude 满血（仅限CC）group.

3. Put it in the settings file

   Edit ~/.claude/settings.json (on Windows, %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json), creating it if needed:

   {
     "env": {
       "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://corecode.live",
       "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "sk-your-key",
       "CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC": "1"
     }
   }

   The third line turns off auto-update, telemetry and other requests to Anthropic's own services, which are unreachable from mainland China. Upgrade by hand with claude update afterwards.

Open a new terminal, run claude and send a message. Type /status in Claude Code; a Base URL of https://corecode.live means you are connected. The full guide is Claude Code.

On mainland networks

• No proxy needed. corecode.live is served through an edge node in Tokyo and is reachable directly from mainland China. A global proxy only adds a detour; add a DIRECT rule for corecode.live in your proxy client.
• First launch hangs connecting to Anthropic. Onboarding contacts the official service. Add "hasCompletedOnboarding": true at the top level of ~/.claude.json to skip it; see Errors.
• Do not /login with a claude.ai account. Claude Code would switch to the official account and conflict with the relay key. If you signed in before, run /logout.
• Long silences are normal. Extended thinking can go minutes without text; the gateway's read timeout is 10 minutes.

Next

What Claude Code costs depends mostly on the cache hit rate, so read Caching and billing and Spending less on Claude Code. For errors see Errors, or ask in the WeChat group.

FAQ