The Chinese firewall severely limits the internet access of the 731 million people in the country that use it, blocking thousands of sites including Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times and Reuters. Yet anyone with basic knowledge of VPNs can still circumvent these restrictions. Chinese authorities have now announced they want to put a stop to that last stand of unfettered access, and are making a concerted effort to close these loopholes.
According to Chinese newspaper Global Times, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will be pushing through changes between now and March 2018, which include forcing all ISPs and telecommunication providers to seek approval for setting up or renting out VPN lines. Speaking to the paper, IT ‘expert’ Li Yi clarified that VPNs would be allowed for certain business purposes: "Some multinational companies in China such as Microsoft Corp have a reasonable need to communicate with their headquarters overseas via VPNs, but some corporations or individuals browse overseas internet pages out of illegal motivations. In this regard, the new rules are extremely important."
Like the cybersecurity law passed in China last November, the new regulations are justified as being for the safety of the general public. A report by the China Internet Network Information Center was released in a timely fashion yesterday, claiming that more than 70 per cent of internet users in China were concerned with security issues. Earlier this month Chinese authorities said all app stores must register with the government for similar reasons, with the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) arguing the measures would “further promote the healthy and orderly development of the internet application store industry”, and that the “basic norms” of the app stores are not up to scratch, with “illegal information” being disseminated.
“The operation scope of internet access service providers is blurry, with some companies expanding their businesses to win more clients. Some companies even carry out their businesses without licenses," another ‘independent expert’, Fu Liang, told the Global Times.
All ISPs will be investigated regionally as a result of the new regulations. However, one VPN provider WIRED spoke to says it does not expect its business to be impacted greatly. Chinese communications companies will be at greater risk, but this provider is based in Switzerland and has no servers in China.
President Sunday Yokubaitis of GoldenFrog said: "The new Chinese regulations will not change our approach. We have been playing this 'cat and mouse' game with China for several years, and we remain confident that we can offer VyprVPN as an effective solution around China's harsh censorship. We developed our proprietary Chameleon technology, which scrambles VPN packet metadata to ensure that China's Great Firewall cannot recognise it, as one such response to past efforts. We can, and will continue to develop solutions."
Yokubaitis adds that VyprVPN has been targeted by authorities in the past, but the company updates its service within a few hours to work around this.
"Many VPN services offered within China and by Chinese providers will probably be shutdown, though."
"We will continue to stand by our mission and fight for an open internet experience for users in China and around the world.
The move will naturally be seen by the outside world as a means of further controlling what the Chinese public is exposed to online, and a tightening of the government's hold. We saw this most recently when Chinese news outlets were instructed to only report on the inauguration of President Donald Trump using materials provided by state media. The FT was privy to documents shared with Chinese journalists, which referred to use of live streaming or photos from the inauguration as “forbidden”. News outlets were told not to prioritise the news or issue any editorial comment on it.
Trump has irked Chinese authorities on a number of occasions in the lead up to his presidency: he broke with US diplomatic norms and accepted a congratulatory call from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan; his nominee for secretary of state Rex Tillerson said China would not be allowed to access fortifications it has built in the South China Sea; and China was namechecked by Trump during the presidential debates as being the reason American economic and security woes.
In an address at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping seemed to position China as being open to the world in a way Donald Trump is not. He said: "Pursuing protectionism is just like locking one's self in a dark room. Wind and rain might be kept outside but so are light and air." This might sound contradictory to China’s own outlook, historically. However, China has enjoyed the benefits of opening up to the world on its own terms - around 40 per cent of online retail sales occurred in the nation in 2015.
And in his speech, the president did clarify China's position: “We should adapt to and guide economic globalisation, cushion its negative impacts and deliver its benefits for all countries." It suggests China will continue to open up, but only ever in a way that benefits it economically and politically.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
