{"id":488,"date":"2017-11-07T09:09:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T01:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2017\/11\/07\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/"},"modified":"2025-01-04T17:13:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T09:13:02","slug":"china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/","title":{"rendered":"China Orders Telecoms To Block Personal VPNs By February"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>China\u2019s government has told tele<a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/communication\/\" title=\"View all posts in communication\" >communication<\/a>s carriers to block individuals\u2019 access to virtual private networks by February 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the global internet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>China\u2019s government has told tele<a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/communications\/\" title=\"View all posts in communications\" >communications<\/a> carriers to block individuals\u2019 access to virtual private networks by February 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the global internet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FiXQi5cwM-8NOvHd9QhP5EpzVMLL?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"1.png\" width=\"640\" height=\"366\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_73 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-5'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/#Photo_Bnext\" title=\"Photo:Bnext\">Photo:Bnext<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-5'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/#People_walk_past_outside_the_China_Unicom_office_building_in_Beijing_Photo_Reuters\" title=\"People walk past outside the China Unicom office building in Beijing. Photo: Reuters\">People walk past outside the China Unicom office building in Beijing. Photo: Reuters<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-5'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/#Photo_howtogeek\" title=\"Photo:howtogeek\">Photo:howtogeek<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-5'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february\/#Photo_Vpntracker\" title=\"Photo:Vpntracker\">Photo:Vpntracker<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h5><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Photo_Bnext\"><\/span>Photo:Bnext<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Some of the country&#8217;s biggest telecom companies \u2014 Bloomberg lists state-run China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom \u2014 are being instructed to block customers from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/jobs\">using virtual private<\/a> networks, a technology that redirects a person&#8217;s Internet traffic through other servers to make it look like they are connected to the Web from someplace else.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FkN6LE-iXZ_ZIU6MRD6yPaabk_mi?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"2.png\" width=\"589\" height=\"346.7705627705628\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h5><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"People_walk_past_outside_the_China_Unicom_office_building_in_Beijing_Photo_Reuters\"><\/span>People walk past outside the China Unicom office building in Beijing. Photo: Reuters<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For years, Chinese citizens have used VPNs to circumvent the country&#8217;s Great Firewall, the colloquial term for blocks and restrictions imposed on the Internet by Beijing in an effort to ensure that only a filtered version of the Web is visible to most of the country. VPNs have allowed tech-savvy Chinese Internet users to access restricted <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/news\/\" title=\"View all posts in news\" >news<\/a> sites and <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/social\/\" title=\"View all posts in social\" >social<\/a> media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>China has periodically clamped down on Internet users&#8217; attempts to evade the Great Firewall. The last such campaign took place in 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/dictionary\/english\/prompting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">prompting<\/a> widespread reports of VPN outages. But the government has intensified its attack on VPNs in recent months. In January, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ruled that all VPNs that did not seek government approval to operate would be deemed illegal. Since then, a slew of VPN providers have been forced to shut down, citing regulatory warnings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FgSL5U9ewj854nZoT3JItNLTvp0T?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"3.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"296\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h5><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Photo_howtogeek\"><\/span>Photo:howtogeek<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear how the new directive may affect multinationals operating within the country, which already have to contend with a cybersecurity law that imposes stringent <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/requirements\/\" title=\"View all posts in requirements\">requirements<\/a> on the transfer of data and may give Beijing unprecedented access to their technology. Companies operating on Chinese soil will be able to employ leased lines to access the <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/international\/\" title=\"View all posts in international\">international<\/a> web but must register their usage of such services for the record, the people familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FuZ2up9HXWlQNMhHuAjQ2qqrdm2E?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"4.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"162\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h5><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Photo_Vpntracker\"><\/span>Photo:Vpntracker<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\u201cThis seems to impact individuals\u201d most immediately, said Jake Parker, Beijing-based vice president of the US-China Business Council. \u201cVPNs are incredibly important for companies trying to access global services outside of China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the past, any effort to cut off internal corporate VPNs has been enough to make a company think about closing or reducing operations in China. It\u2019s that big a deal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FlXXlKXBxtykYAuKbjvAxKMwIbVH?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"GIC.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"488.9643463497453\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s government has told telecommunications carriers to block individuals\u2019 access to virtual private networks by February 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the &#8230;","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[60,3655,1246,1930,353,306,1891,29,34,27,1696,3557,826],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-tips","tag-china","tag-china-orders-telecoms-to-block-personal-vpns-by-february","tag-communication","tag-communications","tag-e-china-cities","tag-hiredchina","tag-international","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-news","tag-requirements","tag-social","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25815,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/25815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}