Sorry, VPN's require business grade internet starting at 300$/month.
Nothing stops them from throttling VPN connections, or even all encrypted traffic. Read up on The great firewall of China and how it really does stop VPN connections. Further, it's much easier for ISP's to block stuff because the first hop for every connection you make is through them.
VPNs stick out in Wireshark or other packet captures like a red flag, and blocking most VPNs is as simple as closing port 500. (Port 500 is the default. Who changes default settings?)
In Wireshark, normally you'll see flurries of variable-sized traffic across 53 then either 80 or 443. But for a VPN, you just see a constant flow of boring packets over 500.
Why doesn't China's national firewall block port 500? Possibly because it would also block the personal VPNs of the leadership of the Chinese government.
It's a little more insiduis than that. They don't want to make it clear by blocking things what they can and can't track. Instead they degrade service from things they have little control over to things they do.
It is not difficult to block traffic you don't understand. Require end users to only use plaintext protocols, even go so far as install your own certs to MITM them. Make it a requirement for using the service.
Just charge any business that needs encryption several million per year, and everyone else can get fucked.
Even beyond the FCC backing this sort of business now, what other part of the government would care to stop that? The only other parts in charge of anything touching on communication technologies are all law enforcement and they are already explicitly stated that they want access to all encrypted communications
Nothing stops them from throttling VPN connections, or even all encrypted traffic. Read up on The great firewall of China and how it really does stop VPN connections. Further, it's much easier for ISP's to block stuff because the first hop for every connection you make is through them.