IPhone 4S unlock UK - China

Hi everyone,
So I initially bought my iphone with O2 in the UK. I then got it unlocked by O2 and am using it currently with Vodafone.
I recently moved to Beijing, China and was planning on using my iPhone over here. Due to it being unlocked I thought this wouldn't be a problem.
After trying to use a Chinese SIM on a new contract the iPhone gave an on-screen message basically saying that the phone was locked.
I've thought about this and I remembered that before I moved here I had to restore my iPhone in order to download an in-app extra (I had forgotten my restriction passcode and so this was the only way). After the restoration I used my saved backup to bring the iPhone to the state it was in before the restore, though I now had purchased those in-app extras.
So I guess my questions are: did the restore re-lock my iphone? If so, will it be possible to just get O2 to re-unlock it for me? Is Vodafone able to do this or does it have to be through O2? I doubt there is any way I can use a back-up file to re-unlock it, is there?
Thanks in advance for your help!

So I tried my friend's Chinese sim today after my factory restore to no avail.
The same message came up as before. I would put the sim in and would get 3G signal (which I thought to be a good sign) and then 'Activation Required' appears.
After the phone tries to go through the activation procedure it pops up with the incompatibility message.
Any ideas?
Thanks

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