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Global performance — despite the Great Firewall of China! 
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Learn how your e-commerce business can perform well despite the “Great Firewall of China” thanks to smart architectures
Overview:
- Architecture instead of workarounds: How a consistent server-side rendering approach specifically addresses latency, regulation, and infrastructure limitations.
- Next.js with a global mindset: European platform, proxy in China – this keeps page loading and UX stable even across continents.
- Journey Aware instead of flying blind: Smart cache strategy that balances SEO, performance, and commerce functions along the user journey.
Michi Feige
Lead Solution Engineer
How can a European platform remain efficient and compliant in China?
Today, global e-commerce projects face a paradoxical conflict. They are caught between modern, highly flexible web stacks and real geographical, regulatory, and infrastructural boundaries. Specifically, they must contend with a central platform in Europe, users in China, restricted access to background systems, and the Great Firewall of China. We encountered this exact challenge in a recent customer project. The smart solution was: a deliberately chosen architecture with server-side rendering (SSR).
At what point does network latency become a noticeable UX weakness in e-commerce?
Although modern web stacks allow applications to be developed faster and more modularly than ever before, performance issues are becoming increasingly apparent over large geographical distances. In particular, intercontinental scenarios reveal that many common architectural decisions that work well locally reach their limits globally. A key driver of this development is the trend toward heavily client-side applications.
- extensive client-side logic
- API-driven UIs
- rendering processes that only take place after multiple requests
In regions with low latency, this is hardly noticeable. However, over long distances, every additional round-trip time significantly increases the perceived loading time. Pages seem to load slowly, content appears delayed, and users lose patience—a risk that directly impacts conversion, brand perception, and ultimately, revenue.
How does a consistent SSR approach partially remove the “Great Firewall of China” as an obstacle?
Given this, we made a conscious decision to use a consistent server-side rendering approach for an international customer project—as a technological bridge between central logic and global reach. The hosting setup was implemented together with FIS-ASP, our hosting partner. The goal was to combine the strengths of a central European platform with high-performance, regulatory-compliant delivery in China.
The basic idea was simple but effective:
- Next.js application runs in Europe
- Pages are rendered on the server side as far as possible
- Content is retrieved via a caching proxy in China
- The proxy obtains the server-side rendering content through the Great Firewall of China and performs TTL-compliant caching
This drastically reduced the number of client-side requests and ensured stable, predictable page loading. The balancing act that needs to be achieved here is that the time to first byte must not suffer too much, and at the same time, the client-side loading processes should cause as little layout shift as possible.
How does Hydration ensure that server and client rendering appear seamless?
Through the deliberate use of data hydration from the server context, the pre-rendered markup can be seamlessly adopted by the client. The advantages:
- Content does not need to be recalculated
- No redundant reloading processes
- Smooth transition from server to client rendering
- No visible breaks or duplication of work
What does a clean cache strategy look like?
While session-related information such as shopping carts or user specifications are deliberately excluded from the cache layer, many other e-commerce components are ideal for caching:
- Product detail pages
- Product lists
- Category pages
- Editorial content
Why did we choose the Emporix Journey Aware Storefront as our framework?
With Emporix Journey Aware Storefront , we focus on a flexible framework based on Next.js and React that understands server-side rendering, dynamic content, and static site generation as combinable tools.
The architecture follows a distinct backend-for-frontend approach with dependency injection, allowing data sources, rendering strategies, and delivery models to be controlled in a targeted manner. Decisions about whether content is delivered statically, server-side, or dynamically are made based on data—depending on user context, journey, and performance requirements.
How does a Journey Aware Storefront combine cache, personalization, and SEO?
In our setup, a Journey Aware Storefront distinguishes between statically cacheable content and dynamic, context-dependent elements. This means that recurring page views from China can largely be served from the cache, while critical commerce functionalities such as checkout or personalized offers continue to come live and consistently from the central system. SEO benefits indirectly from this architecture: stable loading times, less layout shift, and a clear, server-side rendered initial state create good conditions for search engines – without separate SEO special paths.
How does this setup simplify secondary regions and regulated markets?
Furthermore, this setup opens up new possibilities for establishing secondary regions and builds a pragmatic bridge between the central system landscape and regional delivery. Since logic and connected background systems remain centralized, additional regions can be connected without requiring full access to all systems there.
How does this architecture pay off in daily operations?
This approach significantly reduces both technical and organizational overhead, especially in markets with regulatory restrictions or reduced system availability. This architecture also pays off operationally:
- Simpler deployments
- Clearer responsibilities
- Fewer moving parts in the system
- More reproducible releases
- More manageable sources of error
- More robust operation
CONCLUSION
How can latency and regulation be transformed from a risk into a strategic advantage?
Server-side rendering is a strategic tool that builds technological bridges for modern, globally scalable platforms. In scenarios with high latency, regulatory restrictions, or complex infrastructure dependencies, it is not the framework used that determines success, but rather the deliberate distribution of responsibility between the server, cache, and client.
To grow internationally, you have to accept that latency is part of the product. Server-side rendering, intelligent caching, and well-thought-out deployments make this latency manageable—both technically and economically. Modern web architecture therefore does not mean shifting as much logic as possible to the client, but rather making clear decisions about what has the greatest impact where.
The Great Firewall of China is the world’s most comprehensive system for Internet censorship and surveillance. It is operated by the Chinese government. It blocks access to foreign websites (such as Google, Facebook, YouTube) and filters content based on keywords. Technically, it uses methods such as IP blocking, DNS manipulation, and data packet analysis to control the flow of digital information into the country.
Server Side Rendering means that a website is completely converted to HTML on the server before it is sent to the user’s browser.
- The advantage: The browser receives a finished document and does not have to laboriously execute its own scripts to build the page.
- The effect: The page is visible faster and easier to read for search engines (SEO).
Server Side Rendering (SSR) is a technical solution for improving loading times in China. Since the connection through the Great Firewall is often extremely slow and unstable, traditional websites (client-side rendering) frequently fail because the many small data requests get stuck in the firewall’s “data traffic jam.”
With SSR, the server sends only a single, finished package. This reduces the number of connections required through the firewall and ensures that the page is displayed faster and more reliably despite the censorship infrastructure.
Yes, technically it is possible, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. The most common methods are:
VPNs (Virtual Private Networks): Encrypt data traffic and route it through servers abroad.
Shadowsocks / Trojan: Special proxy protocols designed to look like normal web traffic so they are not detected by the firewall.
Roaming: Anyone surfing the internet in China with a foreign SIM card is usually routed directly via their home country and bypasses the blocks (albeit at high cost).
