Some additional info for people that want to get a local number. I took the holiday break in China to take care of many to-do items, including a cell phone plan change:

1) Changed China Unicom 8RMB plan to another 8RMB plan called 流量王 (Data King), which suits me even better. 200MB nationwide data with up to 200MB carryover each month, 30min voice call, free incoming call, SMS, MMS. This means if I visit every other month or so, I can have up to 400MB of data during my 1-2 week trip which is enough for map, email, WeChat and AliPay.
2) Found another cheaper one with China Telecom called 无忧卡 (Worry Free Card), which is 5RMB per month that includes 200MB data, free incoming call, SMS and MMS, pay per use outbound SMS/MMS at 0.10RMB each.

One can certainly argue that they do make it easy and affordable to get a local number.