I think that we put a little too much emphasis on the VPN requirement. If you don't need access to your work email/crm during your stay, you will survive. Sure, you'll need to rely on Bing instead of Google for web searches and you won't have AI apps, but this is manageable.

Just get your Chinese apps loaded before your trips, if you want peace of mind. The process isn't so easy these days because you won't find many of them in Google Play or iCloud.

At a minimum, install and configure WeChat and Alipay.
Opinion: without Alipay and Wechat Pay, you are screwed in Shanghai

You'll probably also want a decent map app. We have a dedicated thread on this topic too:
Google maps not workingfor public transit ? - urgent