It got me thinking that despite being digital and a network, Bitcoin could in some sense, to the extent that it exists outside government controlled/regulated infrastructure
The infrastructure (mainly the internet) may be regulated, but that doesn't mean government have full control or have capability do determine whether someone use cryptocurrency with 100% accuracy. Even great firewall could be bypassed with some time & effort.
Regarding infrastructure, I would argue if the internet is going to be that extremely censored, it would make sense to create a new network. Now, this is going to be off-topic, but I thought about it a few times so far.
Unfortunately, I don't see a way to re-use existing infrastructure for a new network, analogously to the way people created the internet from an analog phone network.
Ham radio can be used through AMPRNet. Their
wiki is here.
However, encryption is not allowed in ham radio, so it's not well suited. And what I'm thinking of is not a way to connect to the internet, but a whole new, independent network.
Another idea is to use directional 2.4GHz (in
ISM band) antennas and potentially off-the-shelf routers to connect to people in your range (max. a few kilometers line-of-sight). This would thus need completely new hardware but that way the infrastructure would be completely decentralised. With enough participants, a network can be created that is easily able to connect a whole continent together. Biggest challenge would just be intercontinental communication.