Turkey actually has a GFW equivalent and it is spread across multiple layers.

More like inconvenience than trouble, I would say, as most prominent VPN providers are blocked at IP level.

i am told by expats that you can use VPNs in china to get access to blocked sites; i am also told that the government generally turns a blind eye, especially to foreigners using VPNs. how they deal with chinese users, in terms of social credit score, is something that is opaque. it seems like an inherently "antisocial" activity by the standards of their governance.

this is all assuming that with nation state resources they can identify use of VPNs at the user level.

that's assuming they can catch you, which they most likely can't.

with nation-state resources, are there not traffic analysis options that could work?

there are ways of circumventing them - China has very sophisticated traffic analysis options but they are not too hard to get around as long as you're not using one of the big popular VPNs.