Welcome Dave!
I see that most of your questions have been answered in the other post you made. We have quite a few players from Beijing in the guild, although I think that many of them use a gaming VPN to connect. It's playable without the VPN, but you'll probably get some lag spikes from time to time.
Chinese ID is basically only available through borrowing one from a friend or your cleaner (if you have one). Make sure to get a copy of the ID card just in case there's any problems.
Regards,
Blackhorn