I’m split on this. Obviously bad, but not sure I can blame the developers for this fully as (if I understand it correctly, which I might not) they are sort of bound by CCP law? I imagine “stirring up controversy”/“making China look bad” might have some rather dire consequences for the developers.

Wont go inte networking, but assuming networking works between them you can manually specify an IP in the mobile app:

Add a device -> three dots in top right -> add devices by IP.

Bonus: This also works over tailscale and similar apps, making it so you can have an always on connection despite not being home.