People traveling to China are having a hard time accessing the Internet as they used to. Connections are fast but the problem is in the government’s policy to restrict access to some of the most popular websites on the planet — including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. And so, smart folks are turning to VPNs to bypass what is commonly referred to as the “Great Firewall of China.”
A VPN app running on your computer and/or other device(s) routes the traffic through its servers located around the globe to deliver web pages and other content to the user. While doing this, the VPN encrypts all traffic, making it harder for major corporations and foreign governments to track your online whereabouts. At the same time, the same process lets users access websites that could otherwise be outside of their reach.
The government of China has realized what’s happening and has hired more people to fight VPNs; as a result, not all VPN services are working in the world’s most populous country — though there are some services that are still capable of doing that (check out: Top VPNs for China).
The changing times
The times are changing the government knows that in the long run, it needs to change its ways. Such a change won’t happen overnight, but we did catch the first promising sign.
Said sign comes from the city of Beijing, which has unveiled plans to allow overseas firms to invest in up to 50 percent ownership of VPN services, within a trial zone, by the year’s end.
We don’t have exact dates, but we do know the move comes on the heels of the relaxation of restrictions approved earlier this year by the State Council. Ultimately, the goal is to attract foreign telecom operators to provide VPN services to foreign-invested firms in the country’s capital, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
The new measures are said to be part of a three-year plan unveiled by the Beijing municipal government to open up the services sector, following a slowdown in the city’s growth to 6.3 percent, in line with the national figure, in the first half of 2019, along with a fall of 2.5 percent in municipal fiscal revenue to 317 billion yuan (around $44.2 billion).
The relaxation is targeted at the engines of future economic growth — services and consumption-related industries — and is also seen as part of a concerted move to further open up China to the rest of the world.
In addition to the popular social media and news websites – online games, as well as video and audio, will also be covered by the relaxation, subject to content oversight and data security standards.