playing from Mainland China requires VPN?

[xcd]

I find that regardless of whether I'm hosting my own game or joining someone else's game, when I play RA2/Yuri's from Mainland China (that is, behind the "great firewall") I need to enable VPN to play. If I *dont* enable VPN, then I can still browse to the lobby / join  the game but I consistently won't load when the host tries to launch the game. 

 

Having a VPN of course makes my ping look bad. Is a VPN absolutely required? Is there a way around this?

[bill_gates]

你是中国人，为什么不玩战网？走过来玩cncnet的不是自找麻烦吗？真搞笑