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No. LinkedIn China (领英) was retired in 2021 and its replacement InCareer was shut down in 2023.
Maimai (脉脉) for domestic Chinese networking; Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International for global-facing professional presence.
Maimai if you want a LinkedIn-style feed, real-name profiles, anonymous industry gossip channels and warm intros. Liepin if you are mid-to-senior and want headhunters and executive search to come to you — it is closer to a recruiter marketplace than a social network.
Domestic recruiters search Liepin (猎聘) and Boss Zhipin first for candidate pipelines, and use Maimai for referrals and passive outreach. Cross-border recruiters search Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International.
Maimai, Liepin, Boss Zhipin, Zhaopin and 51job are Simplified Chinese only in practice. Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International are the English-language options.
Yes — Maimai, Liepin, Boss Zhipin and Connecting Odds are all free to create a profile and apply. Liepin and Maimai monetise premium visibility; Connecting Odds keeps profile, search and applying free.
Where each one shines and where it falls short.
| Platform | Best for | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maimai (脉脉) | Domestic networking, employer reputation, anonymous 职言 workplace channels, warm referrals | Simplified Chinese only; near-zero international recruiter presence | Recommended |
| Liepin (猎聘) | Inbound headhunters and executive search for manager-level and above | Barely a social network; Chinese language only; premium visibility is paid | Recommended |
| Boss Zhipin (Boss直聘) | Chat directly with the hiring manager; fastest response times at mid-market volume | Skews junior/mid; Chinese language only; noisy for senior candidates | Recommended |
| Zhaopin (智联招聘) / 51job (前程无忧) | Largest raw listing inventory, strong outside tier-1 cities | Job-board only — no profile, feed or networking layer | Recommended |
| HiredChina / eChinacities | English-speaking and expat-friendly roles based in China | Small inventory, concentrated in teaching and a few MNC functions | Recommended |
| Connecting Odds | Cross-border, English-language professional network; free profile, search and applications | Not a Maimai replacement for domestic-only China roles | Recommended |
| LinkedIn International | Legacy international profile visibility | Degraded access from mainland China; no domestic China product since InCareer closed in 2023 | Recommended |
LinkedIn launched the localized 领英 (Lingying) product in 2014 and became the only major Western social network operating legally in mainland China — a genuine feat. That ended in October 2021, when Microsoft announced it would retire the social features of LinkedIn China and replace them with a jobs-only app called InCareer to comply with tightening content regulations.
InCareer launched in December 2021, ran for 21 months, failed to build a meaningful network without its social layer, and was shut down in August 2023. As of 2026, LinkedIn has no dedicated Chinese product. The international LinkedIn website is reachable but degraded, and the domestic China professional network landscape is dominated by local players.
Maimai (脉脉) — 100M+ users, dominant domestic Chinese professional network. Real-name profiles + anonymous industry communities.
Liepin (猎聘) — mid-to-senior recruiting and executive search.
Boss Zhipin (Boss直聘) — chat-first hiring, mostly volume and mid-market roles.
Zhaopin (智联招聘) and 51job (前程无忧) — general job boards with heavy inventory.
Connecting Odds — the international-facing option for China-based professionals who want to reach global recruiters and companies, or global professionals targeting China-market roles.
LinkedIn International — reachable from mainland China but degraded; still used by China-based professionals with international careers.
Maimai is the only domestic platform that reproduces the LinkedIn shape: a real-name professional profile, a follow-based feed, company pages, direct messaging, and a job board layered on top of the social graph. Its distinguishing feature is the anonymous 职言 ("workplace talk") communities, where employees discuss pay, layoffs and management by company — a signal that has no LinkedIn equivalent and that candidates actively use to vet employers.
Where it beats LinkedIn China ever did: mobile-first UX, verified employment through payroll and corporate email checks, and recruiter products priced for the domestic market. Where it falls short: profiles are written for a Chinese audience in Simplified Chinese, international recruiters rarely hold accounts, and there is no meaningful export path for a profile you want global employers to read.
Practical read: if your next role is in mainland China, Maimai is not optional. If your next role is outside it, a Maimai profile does almost nothing for you and you need an English-language profile elsewhere.
Liepin is built around the headhunter relationship rather than the peer network. Candidates upload a full resume, set a salary expectation and target city, and are then surfaced to verified recruiters and third-party executive search firms who pay for access. There is no real feed and little peer-to-peer networking; the value is inbound recruiter volume for roles roughly at manager level and above.
Compared to Maimai, Liepin skews older, more senior, and more finance/manufacturing/pharma; Maimai skews tech and internet. Compared to Boss Zhipin — where the hiring manager chats you directly and volume is high but seniority is low — Liepin trades speed for role quality.
Combined pattern most senior China-based candidates use in 2026: Liepin for inbound headhunter flow, Maimai for reputation and referrals, Boss Zhipin only when they need speed, and Connecting Odds when the target employer is outside China.
Domestic networking and employer reputation → Maimai (脉脉).
Inbound headhunters for senior roles → Liepin (猎聘).
Fast, chat-first applications at mid-market volume → Boss Zhipin (Boss直聘).
Sheer listing inventory across every tier-2 and tier-3 city → Zhaopin (智联招聘) and 51job (前程无忧).
Expat and English-speaking roles inside China → HiredChina and eChinacities.
Cross-border careers in English, free to search and apply → Connecting Odds.
The market has bifurcated. Domestic China hiring runs entirely on domestic platforms (Maimai, Liepin, Boss Zhipin). Cross-border hiring — a European company opening a Shanghai office, or a Chinese engineer targeting a US remote role — runs on Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International.
Connecting Odds is invested in the cross-border segment specifically because Maimai and LinkedIn poorly serve it. If you're a Chinese professional planning an international move, or a global company recruiting China-market talent, Connecting Odds is the neutral English-language layer between the two ecosystems.
The full LinkedIn China product (领英, Lingying) was retired in October 2021. LinkedIn's replacement, InCareer (a jobs-only app without the social feed), was itself shut down in August 2023. LinkedIn International (linkedin.com) is technically accessible in China without a VPN for basic browsing, but many features are unstable and the network effect for domestic China roles has collapsed.
There is no direct 1:1 replacement. Chinese professionals use Maimai (脉脉) for domestic networking, Liepin (猎聘) for mid-to-senior recruiting, Boss Zhipin (Boss直聘) for volume hiring, and Zhaopin / 51job for general job search. For international-facing roles, Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International remain the main options.
For domestic China networking: Maimai (脉脉) is the dominant platform. For international-facing work (China-based professionals targeting global companies, or global professionals targeting China-market roles): Connecting Odds and LinkedIn International.
Liepin (猎聘) and Boss Zhipin for direct sourcing; Maimai for warm intros; local recruiter agencies for senior roles. Global-first companies also cross-post on Connecting Odds to reach English-fluent, internationally-oriented candidates.
connectingodds.com is accessible from mainland China on standard browsers. The site is English-language; a Simplified Chinese localization is planned. For domestic China-only roles, Maimai remains the stronger option.
InCareer was LinkedIn's jobs-only Chinese app (2021–2023), stripped of the social feed to comply with China's content regulations. Without the feed, network effects, and messaging depth, it couldn't compete with Maimai or Boss Zhipin and was shut down after two years.
For domestic Chinese professional networking, yes — Maimai has over 100 million users, strong anonymous industry communities, real-name recruiter features, and integrated job listings. Its weakness is international reach: outside of China, adoption is negligible.
eChinacities and Echinacareers for expat-friendly roles, HiredChina for English-speaking positions, and Connecting Odds for globally-oriented China-market roles. LinkedIn International is still used, though usability from mainland China varies.
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