Are any VPN's getting China wrong? It would be pretty obvious. In fact, common VPN's I'm looking at don't even support China as an option. Obviously no VPN's are mixing countries up where it becomes clear from what you're allowed to browse.
But so "if you do things that are legal in one country, but might not be in another" is what I'm specifically asking about. Ultimately, legality is determined by the laws that apply to you, not the country your packets come out of. So I'm asking for a specific example.
And I already said, that if a site is attempting to determine permissions based on the country, it's doing so via the same list. E.g. when the country is actually Greenland, but you think it's the UK, and Netflix also thinks it's the UK. Which is why I'm saying, at the end of the day, is there any real consequence here? If both sender and receiver think it's the UK, what does it matter if it's actually Greenland?
China was just an example. Try to extrapolate on your own.
Take someone from Russia, Iran, wherever, trying to access information they aren't allowed to access, or sharing information they aren't allowed to share. They think they're connected to a neighboring country, but in reality are exiting from their own country. Therefore, the traffic gets analyzed and they fall out a window.
Imagine Snowden sharing information about the NSA while using a VPN that actually exited from the US. Things might have developed differently.
Yes, it won't matter for most services. But as soon as states or ISPs are involved, you're fucked if you get it wrong.