As China Shuts Out the World, Internet Access From Abroad Gets Harder Too

Most internet users trying to get past China's Great Firewall search for a cyber tunnel that will take them outside censorship restrictions to the wider web. From a report: But Vincent Brussee is looking for a way in, so he can better glimpse what life is like under the Communist Party. An analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, Brussee frequently scours the Chinese internet for data. His main focus is information that will help him understand China's burgeoning social credit system. But in the last few years, he's noticed that his usual sources have become more unreliable and access tougher to gain.

Some government websites fail to load, appearing to block users from specific geographic locations. Other platforms require a Chinese phone number tied to official identification. Files that were available three years ago have started to disappear as Brussee and many like him, including academics and journalists, are finding it increasingly frustrating to penetrate China's cyber world from the outside. "It's making it more difficult to simply understand where China is headed," Brussee said. "A lot of the work we are doing is digging for little scraps of information."

Quite troubling if true

[Catvid-22]

The most plausible interpretation is that the PRC is splitting its "messaging", one for the domestic audience and the other for the world. Outsiders would see the seeming peace-loving China as a stable partner in trade and progress, while within the country, the state-controlled pushes its narrative of Chinese exceptionalism, something which is bound to lead to some form of imperialism. This won't be unique to China, as similar propaganda led to German and Japanese militarism before the onset of World War 2. If you believe your nation is great and unique, then it becomes your Manifest Destiny [wikipedia.org] to spread your civilization across the world.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no IF. For Chinese speakers who can compare their internal vs external messages, it's exactly what's happening. The "internal" and the "external" messages are not the same and sometimes contradict each other.

The world had a brief period

[rsilvergun]

in the 50s through the 70s when it got more free overall. This chaffed the hides of our rules, kings and Emperors. They have re-exerted their power, and we have rolled over and let them.

Re:

[aberglas]

No, the free period was up to about 2010. The golden period was the 1990s.

China became a much, much happier and freer after Mao finally died. Hard to overestimate how repressive he was. And even after Tienanmen, China was much freer than it had been for most of its history until quite recently.

Also, in the 1980s we had Gorbachev and the fall of the iron curtain.

Things looked really good in the 1990s. A new renaissance of world peace.

But then came Putin and Xi.

Get on a plane

[ngb25]

Sounds like he needs to get on a plane and actually go there. Not that hardâ¦

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Not only is it orders of magnitude more expensive than just opening up a browser, but it also puts you in reach of China's authorities. That's not traditionally a good idea when you're researching Chinese fascism.