When I went to China I expected problems so I setup my laptop with an SSL tunnel on port 443 to a virtual server and then routed openvpn over that. It worked like a charm. My favorite feature of openvpn is it can maintain state, so even if the tunnel resets and openvpn has to reconnect all the tcp connections just pick up where they left off.
This will work for a short while, but consistent long term openvpn-matching packets are now seen the the GFW's automated dpi systems, eventually the IP of your non-china VPN endpoint will get blocked.
Openvpn allows you to connect to and have a routable IP on the network. SSH tunnels are great for some things but being logically on a network is another thing.