Trouble activating Fifa25 on this computer

Trying to run Fifa25 on a win11 machine. Getting this message: 

We noticed you computer is currently offline. To activate your game on this computer using your EA account, you'll need to connect to the internet.

We followed ALL the tests and procedure which come up on this topic here on ea.com, spent two days on this now. 

 -reinstalled the game

 -restart pc many times, clear caches as mentioned on this forum, reinstall the network drivers, etc. 

 -turn off fire wall

 -run the sys windows file system checker, no errors. 

 -other EA games run fine. 

 -can browse the internet well with and without vpn from our location here in China. 

 -the game shows up in our library but getting the message up above every time. 

 -sent trouble reports to EA from within the EA app, no idea where the replies will come in but so far not seeing anything. 

 -looked everywhere for live support, nothing showing up. 

Any ideas are most welcome. Thank you.