Secure DNS

I experience Secure DNS block literally any server in China. I know it’s not a safe place to venture into, but that’s insane. I thought it’s something with my connection that I was able to access certain domains only once in a while, otherwise getting “ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED”, but if I used a vpn, I was able to see them right away, same when I disabled DNS protection. I’d appreciate if such block would come with a message, at least, so I knew what’s going on.