Gmail blocked in China

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/29/google-china-idUSL3N0UD21W20141229

by brandonheato • 12 years ago

261 179 12 years ago

While this is undoubtably an aggressive move by China I can't help but doubt that the impact will be very large. By now most Chinese users of googles services are using VPNs so this really only affects the lowest common denominator of Chinese users

kancer• 12 years ago

Using VPNs are becoming increasingly difficult too. All the large VPN services are blocked here; OpenVPN doesn't work; the only option left is to use unknown services which are not guaranteed to be genuine.

akramhussein2• 12 years ago

I found ARK and a few others to work on my iPhone. None on my MacBook though.

Normati4• 12 years ago

StrongVPN works fine for me. I leave it on pretty much 24/7 except when it disconnects a few times a day.

akramhussein2• 12 years ago

Travelling in China right now. No Google services work but Gmail via SMTP on my iPhone seems fine. I'm not confident all emails go through though. Heading to Hong Kong tonight so not sure if that will be different. Using VPN does open everything but obviously becomes slower. It's not only Google though, all social media.

Speaking to locals they don't care. There is an alternative for everything and they are better suited to Chinese culture too.

crishoj• 12 years ago

In my experience, internet access in Hong Kong is completely separate, and not restricted by the "Great Firewall".

TazeTSchnitzel• 12 years ago

One Country, Two Systems

WhitneyLand2• 12 years ago

>Speaking to locals they don't care

Locals don't care that they can't use certain American sites, or don't care that they are intellectually oppressed?

dengnan• 12 years ago

We do care. The problem is: What can we do? Using technical method to get through GFW? Well, it works now but technically, Chinese government controls all Internet facility and they do not even care to block thousands of IPs, even if it means block the whole Internet (It happened in Xinjiang and Tibet.) Moreover, ISPs constantly throttle the international data which means connecting to a server outside GFW may be very slow or even randomly disconnected. In short, any technical solution does not work on a government who controls the country's Internet facilities and does not care to pull the plug. Other solutions? You cannot turn to traditional media like newspapers and TVs, because they are, as well, controlled by the government, which is in turn controlled by a single party. There's also no way to make any meaningful non-violence political influence. The government is not voted by the people so they just don't care whatever their people say. The only possible way is to use violence, but we do not have guns.

simonh2• 12 years ago

The Chinese have never really had freedom, so they've nothing to compare it to. Even if they did, people are doing well over there right now. Any realistic attempt at political change insitgated from outside the political elite would introduce instability and risk for uncertain benefits. As long as China is economically improving there's no real impetus for change. The only protests you get are from those small minorities that are losing out, and that tends to be temporary and/or local instances that are disconnected from one another.

LiweiZ4• 12 years ago

Just let you know that weight for English as a lesson for students for a long time has been reduced in the curriculum these years. I hated learning English when I was a student. But without it, you have less access to the information and knowledge. It's all about controlling what's in people's mind and feed them with some other stimulations. Intellectually oppressed? I think its priority among average people, even in the developed nations, is not that high.

DenisM2• 12 years ago

Power of any government starts with popular support. If you could convince just one fellow countryman that more freedom would make his live better, would make him better, that will be one less pillar for the oppression, and one more for the freedom. It's a daunting task, but it's the only reliable way - persuasion. I wouldn't fault you for giving up and moving elsewhere, just know that there is an option before you do.

hibbelig• 12 years ago

My understanding is the locals mostly want to earn good money and have a reasonable life. And it's dangerous to care about the Greate Firewall. So they prefer to look the other way.

Of course, this way it's only going to get worse over time.

jorgecastillo• 12 years ago

There is an alternative for everything and they are better suited to Chinese culture too.

Well good for them, either way with this policy the Chinese government enforces, I don't think China will be able to compete internationally in the software industry.

unixpunx• 12 years ago

I don't think China will be able to compete internationally in the software industry.

That is a very self-centered point of view, in recent european TED talks there were speakers like Mikko Hypponen from F-Secure, that there should be "european" versions of Google, Facebook, so we can avoid all the dragnet datamining etc. unethical web development solutions and NSA spying that somehow pass in the US.

Trezoid• 12 years ago

China is such a massive place that Chinese players in particular don't need to compete outside china. Two of the largest social networks, QZone and Sina Weibo at >645,000,000 and >500,000,000 users respectively are at the level where they're only smaller than facebook and they're used almost exclusively in one country.

You don't need to compete internationally when you can get that kind of userbase domestically, and the Great Firewall is absolutely and to some extent intentionally a big part of that.

neolefty• 12 years ago

Every Chinese programmer I know, and also all the technical people such as network admins, use a VPN routinely and openly now. That was not the case two years ago, when more Google services worked.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

"They don't care??!!" There are 1.3 billion Chinese and half of them use the Internet, how many locals you have spoken with? I live in China and am in the IT industry, I know there are a lot people quit using Gmail because the ban, not to say Google Search.

interdrift2• 12 years ago

This is just ridicilous.Why would they do that?

sirkneeland• 12 years ago

Are you using a non-Chinese SIM? In my past travels to China I was able to access Facebook and everything else as long as I was roaming on my AT&T SIM and paying gratuitous roaming fees.

praptak• 12 years ago

What would happen if everybody added random "free tibet human rights xinjiang" triggers to their web pages? Or even better, randomly embed real snippets from organizations that fight for human rights in China.

menato2• 12 years ago

The idea of putting "Tibet" and "human rights" close to each other doesn't look very promising to me based on some historic observations of pre-China Tibet lifestyle http://masterok.livejournal.com/1713489.html (sorry for russian, but hopefully it is pretty simple for automatic translation)

kryptiskt• 12 years ago

What a red herring. That is one weak excuse for China's violation of human rights. Yeah, most of the world lacked human rights in the past, so what?

Steko• 12 years ago

I'd guess 'decreased traffic from China'. Something tells me that isn't the answer you are looking for.

chingjun2• 12 years ago

Chinese government once blocked the download page of the python website (python.org), when they released python version 2.6.4. It is widely believed that it's because the version number triggered that[1].

Python website has since added another download link written in Chinese on their website.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_19... , called 六四事件 in Chinese, literally means six-four incident since it happened on 4th of June

Normati4• 12 years ago

I like this idea. Unfortunately the small cost to each individual site operator is too great for their own motivation - despite the value it might add. I guess that value would be more intelligent filtering which may actually be a good thing. A lot of innocent content gets blocked.

It won't cause everything to get blocked - if they were going to block everything, they could have done that already.

sindarknave• 12 years ago

You misjudge the nature of Chinese political control; awareness of human rights organizations is not the issue.

Apart from a vocal minority of patriots, most people are quite aware of the lack of democratic freedoms, crackdowns of dissidence, or restrictions on speech. But most people are very satisfied with the prosperity of the status quo. Case in point: in response to the very public Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, the Mainland Chinese response was either "meh" or that Hong Kong people were overly optimistic that the Chinese government would allow universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Source: HK national.

BillFranklin2• 12 years ago

I'm fairly sure this has been the case for a few months, this site is very useful: http://www.blockedinchina.net/.

rahimnathwani• 12 years ago

That web site tests HTTP. The article specifically mentions IMAP and SMTP.

BillFranklin2• 12 years ago

Ah, thanks. I spoke too soon. I remembered it started earlier this year and thought this was a repeat of the story. This is a colossal increase.

kweks2• 12 years ago

I've had less and less success with VPNs in China - I resort to SSH tunneling / SOCKS proxies on personal boxes.

SOCKS proxies will get cut off after ~1h or so, you'll have a 'cool down' period of a few minutes, and then they'll come back.

Presumably this is to irritate, or perhaps to have a chance to see which requests slip through during the disruption.

strebler• 12 years ago

Have you tried obfsproxy? You can make a tunnel that looks like web/skype/etc traffic, it's worked well for us in China when we've needed it.

atoponce2• 12 years ago

The "Great Firewall" in China has over 600 million active Internet users. That's double the population of the United States. Baidu is the dominating search engine, there are replacement services for Twitter, Facebook, and others. Their IM "Wechat" has over 300 million active users alone.

In all reality, Google, Facebook, and others would _love_ to have even the smallest presence in China to get access to that user base. It's a gold mine just waiting to be cracked. Until they are, it will be referred to as "The Great Firewall", when in reality, Chinese internet users probably aren't really missing a lot, outside of politically charged sites, perhaps.

malandrew• 12 years ago

I don't think it's fair to say that Chinese users aren't missing a lot. At the end of the day, a small number of users are responsible for the overwhelming majority of quality content created and discovered (authorship and curation). Those users more often than not rely on high quality content irrespective of national origin. When you cut off that access for those people, it's certain to limit the quality, breadth and depth of what they create and share with their peers in China.

I expect this to be especially true with Twitter, which is often a very valuable back channel for many communities of interest (for example, a lot of prominent engineers in several programming language communities use Twitter as a way to share novel ideas and libraries).

When you cut off Chinese users from these sites, you cut them off from a lot more than just inconvenient political content.

hipaulshi2• 12 years ago

almost all tech companies in China are behind VPNs. Yep.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

If you guys are having a difficulty understanding what is 50 cent party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party), or its derivation, Ziganwu (http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/27/content_31021911.ht...), I guess atoponce can be an example.

atoponce2• 12 years ago

China has more Internet users than most countries have for a population. It has a cornucopia of content and services that would rival the "free Internet" you and I enjoy. It's hardly a digital vacuum mainstream media would like you to believe. It's no North Korea.

Sure, there are social and political issues, but most Chinese Internet users are very happy with what's available to them. The reality is, there are two "Internets", and China's Internet is a very large one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_China

illumen• 12 years ago

Trade war imminent?

thomasato• 12 years ago

I wonder that as well.

JTon• 12 years ago

What motives does China have to begin a trade war with its largest trade partner? Serious Q

frozenport3• 12 years ago

Its already happening in the form of non-unilateral trade policies. China is able to do what it wants in the US, but US companies are de-facto required to make vast contributions of intellectual property to do business in China.

WhitneyLand2• 12 years ago

Is Tor not an option? I thought it could hide itself pretty well via HTTP tunneling. Maybe the performance makes it a last resort.

hipaulshi2• 12 years ago

all public tor bridge is blocked in China. Besides, it's soooo slow...

oahziur• 12 years ago

I think Tor network was not working in China a long time ago...

nihaody• 12 years ago

But the big bad USA is still much much worse than China let us not forget!

est2• 12 years ago

No no no this is bad journalism. Is not just blocking "access" to gmail, but one out of of five Gmail's MX servers are blocked

    gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com (74.125.31.26, blocked)
    alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
    alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
    alt3.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
    alt4.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com

to be specific, all traffic to address of 74.125.31.0/24, including gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com, got null routed after AS4134

This means China now risks becoming isolated in global email network, not just "access" to Gmail.

And no, your VPN/SSH/whatever_tunnel won't work if all of the MX servers are blocked.

3pt141592• 12 years ago

Why doesn't my tunnel work in China?

salmonellaeater• 12 years ago

The issue is that Google's mail servers can't communicate with servers within China, so any user of a Chinese mail service will not be able to send mail to Gmail users (and vice versa). If you are within China using a VPN to access Gmail, Google still can't send emails back in to Chinese machines.

paulrosenzweig• 12 years ago

Are Gmail's MX records necessary for Chinese email users to receive email from Gmail? If so, why?

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

No, but they are required for sending email to Gmail. And an email provider may misscharacterize a message as spam because it's lacking.

Saying that they "Blocked Gmail" has an intuitive meaning that they blocked the HTTP interface to it, but they also blocked a part of the SMTP interface.

thrownaway24242• 12 years ago

By the way, how did you figure out that network was blocked? Is there a looking-glass-alike I can use to check?

The reason I ask is because that particular network you mentioned is only one of dozens that Google serves up as the A record for gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com. From my location, it's on 74.125.25.26 instead. And the MX for Google Apps hosted domain customers (including google.com itself) is aspmx.l.google.com, which (again from this location) is 173.194.79.27 or 74.125.28.26 or 74.125.20.27 or one of dozens of other IPs.

est2• 12 years ago

It's just mtr or ping. No magic here.

Nux• 12 years ago

So, should I understand that essentially centralising email within gmail is bad? How have we not seen this coming? /sarcasm

kaptain2• 12 years ago

The sentiment that access to Google services doesn't matter because there are sufficient Chinese replacements is absolutely wrong. The Chinese government is handicapping its tech labor development by blocking Google.

I teach a basic web development workshop to university and vocational school students. One of the things we teach is how to look up things for youself on the internet. (Is that a cry of disbelief I hear? You can't imagine how confused I was before we specifically modeled and taught this.) Baidu search results, when it comes to searching for technical answers, are really lame. Google's search results are better, mostly because they tap heavily into the stackexchange network. It's disappointing and frustrating to try to encourage students to search for things via Baidu because the answers to their questions are so difficult to find. I've had students tell me that they turn on a VPN in order to access Google because those search results are that much better.

And it's not just a problem with having poor search results, but blocking the actual sites that have information is mind-boggling to me. I /know/ that China can do finer grain filtering than on a per-domain basis; I've seen specific articles blocked on wikipedia while wikipedia itself remained accessible.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

This is correct. While it's a minority, all the Chinese programmers (me included) hate the GFW!

LiweiZ4• 12 years ago

Baidu's search results are basically unusable compared to Google's. The only reason it thrives is it's one of the only few options in the country. Another thing, given the ruling party's organization structure and its way of execution/management, a rough cut(I mean 一刀切 in Chinese) style is exactly what you can find in almost all the things they do. A fine-grained approach can hardly be expected in this case. Not to mention there is a lack of feedback mechanism of this demand for decision makers.

auganov• 12 years ago

Ironically though, if there was to be no GFW in China, at least half of the web tech sector would disappear. Startups are in a weird place of suffering the most but also benefiting the most from the GFW.

sagfafh4• 12 years ago

If I were the chinese government, I would do what the US do: Declare loudly the importance of free speech, human rights etc. while infecting every server with trojans, using the cheap human resource to clickfarm positive wikipedia articles, use machine learning and neural network to recognize dissident patterns on the internet and target them specifically, spy on the population while condamning other countries for citizen surveillance, and most importantly, scream as loudly as you can about how crucial human right is while secretly spending $$$ on extraordinary rendition.

epynonymous3• 12 years ago

i agree that as a software developer, google is an essential tool, it goes where sometimes stackoverflow doesn't go, but there are true alternatives that aren't local like yahoo, bing, duckduckgo, these are all foreign and work more or less uninhibited, it's just that these companies actually follow local protocol which google outright told the chinese government to fuck off.

seanmcdirmid3• 12 years ago

FYI, Bing is not blocked in China. That is all.

fatjokes4• 12 years ago

Anybody know why this might be? Is it because Microsoft has been historically friendlier to China (vs. Google) or because it's even worse than Baidu?

blisterpeanuts• 12 years ago

What do citizens in China think of this? When Google Search was effectively banned, some scientists said that they depended on Google Scholar and Google Books, services which were also affected by the ban. Are Baidu and similar services really an effective replacement?

I'm also wondering what would happen if the U.S. takes this to the World Trade Organization. Arbitrarily blocking some company's services could well be interpreted as unfair trade practices. And a more aggressive U.S. government, perhaps with a more protectionist president in 2016, might well decide to retaliate.

wilbeibi• 12 years ago

Thanks to GFW, many of my friends learned the usage of VPN/SSH/NAT/hosts at a very early age, which benefits a lot when taking computer network course. (>﹏<.)

CitizenKane• 12 years ago

Most are aware of it, and for a lot of things there simply aren't good replacements. Baidu is pretty much a poor clone of Google and definitely doesn't work as well (even for Chinese language searches).

At the same time though, Chinese people are fairly used to censorship. It's pervasive at every level in China, so much so that it can sometimes be difficult to see.

I think there is a stymying effect here, but there is no way that the Communist Party will give up censorship of the internet over nothing.

There might be at least some possibility that using the WTO could help this. It did have an effect on the rare earth trade when China was restricting rare earth exports [1]. I suspect China would fight _far_ harder against this though.

LiweiZ4• 12 years ago

Not an effective replacement but one of the only few options they have. Google is not even in majority's option list.

smilekzs• 12 years ago

The majority of Chinese netizens [citation needed] don't care simply because they're not as well educated to digest English content to begin with.

Looking forward to see this issue escalate, as it's the only way to deter the Chinese Gov't.

drzaiusapelord2• 12 years ago

How exactly do you deter a government that rolls tanks against its own citizens? I really don't think there's a democratic reform avenue here. People will deal with it, and largely accept it due to their anti-western attitudes. The Communist Party sees citizens as their subjects and will put them in line as need be. Its not a democracy.

devll3• 12 years ago

I live in Urumqi. Not only Gmail is blocked , but all the google services are blocked here. And it has been quite a long time.

smcl• 12 years ago

Are you a foreigner or are you Chinese? I'm curious as I naively assumed that due to the unrest\resistance that even tourism in Urumqi was difficult to do legally, and therefore residence\work would be out of the question or nigh on impossible

devll3• 12 years ago

I'm Chinese, but I am from minority. I am a developer so it is quite painful to live with this network.

kweks2• 12 years ago

I'm looking to ride through west china this summer. Would I be able to send you an email / IM to ask a few logistical questions? :)

devll3• 12 years ago

Sure. I am happy to help . I can access Gmail with SOCKS proxy, so you can mail me at a p h a w k.

radikalus• 12 years ago

Is this true in the FTZ as well? I've yet to find really good reliable info on the net situation in the FTZ...

eitally• 12 years ago

Perhaps we are an edge case, but this has a potentially significant impact to certain businesses, namingly those that are Google Apps customers and rely on gmail to get work done. They'll be routing all web traffic over their own network via HK or Singapore, but...

That doesn't help employees who need Mobile email access. As of now, companies can't count on remote access to corporate gmail by Chinese employees. We have about 2500 Chinese employees with sanctioned BYOD phones - it's a huge problem!

lsseckman• 12 years ago

We're going to be running into the same problem as we're planning to roll out thousands of new Gmail & other google app accounts over the next couple of months.

Has Google made any statement about whether these will be operable or not?

fown9• 12 years ago

Two observations:

1) Since China effectively blocked most of Google's services (and uses Google's mobile operating system for free and makes a ton of money off it - look at Xiaomi), Isn't it basically that China was able to rob Google, and doesn't suffer any consequences from it?

2) Also most US websites are blocked in China (Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia, NYTimes, the list goes on and on...) Why is it that the US government doesn't take any action against that, where as China is freely dumping cheap manufactured products that are made in factories that violate human rights?

abhinavk• 12 years ago

AOSP (Android Open-Source Project) is open-source.

frozenport3• 12 years ago

>Why is it that the US government doesn't take any action against that

Because the US goverment is in league with China[1], and American voters have a non-pragmatic view of unilateral free-trade? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fin...

xnull2guest• 12 years ago

This is likely because of Google's agreement with the US government to provide access to Chinese emails to officials as part of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, and the Chinese hacking of the access systems put in place by Google for law enforcement to collect a list of active surveillance targets.

happyscrappy• 12 years ago

It is good that China is protecting their citizens like this maybe Europe can do it too.

drzaiusapelord2• 12 years ago

Not surprising considering the tricks they've been pulling of late. What can be said here? The people have chosen an autocratic government and often, without me even provoking them, will tell me how superior is is to western values, the same way Russians will also do. As an international traveler and sometimes international worker, this is fairly typical stuff. I see this kind of thing on VK and Facebook all the time. Everytime some autocratic regime cracks down the people go, "Please more sir! We dont need the Western pigs and their decadent values!" They buy into the anti-Western narrative pretty deeply.

My personal take is that there's a great war for democracy going on right now and the final lines are being drawn. The weaker autocrats have fallen (mideast, Ukraine, etc) and the stronger ones are falling (Syria) but the strongest have double-down on oppression (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc). I think this political dynamic will be the defining narrative for quite some time.

I also think a balkanazation of the internet is slowly happening. China is certainly doing it and Russia might follow. I personally don't have a big problem with this. Probably means less malware and cyberattacks for everyone. I think its obvious that easy access to information isn't this revolutionary thing, at least in autocratic regimes. People just seem to prefer state controlled media or narratives that fit in with their biases. Once China sets the precedent others will follow, especially if there's zero economic fallout from it.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

"The people have chosen an autocratic government" - saying so is so unfair to us. Maybe people like me who desire for an unblocked Internet is a minority (when compared to the population in this country), but people who desire for safe milk and food, clean water and fresh air for their babies are not!

But on the other hand, I must say that your observations described in your first paragraph are correct. Take the recent Hong Kong protest for an example, almost all people I know, including the highly educated people, are "tricked" by the censored local newspaper and are not on the same side of the HK people, and that made me sad and irritated...

dragontamer• 12 years ago

We in the US complain about our lack of choice in the political system. We have two parties, making our choices rather limited in elections.

However, China has a one party system. There is no counter to the Communist Party.

fatjokes4• 12 years ago

Take the recent Hong Kong protest for an example, almost all people I know, including the highly educated people, are "tricked" by the censored local newspaper and are not on the same side of the HK people, and that made me sad and irritated

As I understood it, the HK protestors undermined their own support within China with their racism and condescension toward mainland Chinese and the perception* that they never protested autocratic British rule. If I were a Chinese citizen, even if I wanted the same things as the HK protestors, I wouldn't support them out of self-respect.

*I say perception to give HK the benefit of the doubt. A quick Googling didn't yield anything except an unhelpful Quora answer.

igivanov• 12 years ago

I am not sure how blocking gmail has anything to do with democracy and "western values".

OTOH the "western values" on the Internet as we've recently observed include total worldwide surveillance, hacking everything at will, manipulation of social networks and so on, so maybe your "democratic" high horse is not so high after all.

mkawia2• 12 years ago

Surveillance is not a democratic value even the US is doing it.

I can't imagine if my government blocked my gmail . I'll lose not just my email,play, my app engine websites etc etc.

DenisM2• 12 years ago

Freedom of communication has a lot to do with western values. Democracy is about informed consent.

bertil2• 12 years ago

There are rational reasons to prefer authoritative government, especially in changing countries, especially without a tradition of democracy. I have no idea why GMail was censored, but I´m assuming it has to do with heightened security protocol. It is likely that some people in China used the service for nefarious purposes (local official corruption is probable) and that the authorities wanted to keep opposable proof, in order be able to show to increasingly disgruntled citizenry that the rule of law can work -- as opposed to the often preferred option of social-media fuelled lynching.

My point is not that banning GMail is good, but that you are judging an institution without knowing their intent. They could be wrong, but not for the reason that you do not give them.

I certainly agree on the balkanisation, though. Ebbs and flows, I hope.

As for your more general point: Western values are great in Western countries; Western inequality in a country with red envelopes and little over-sight of officials is less ideal. Western alcohol is fun in a fancy restaurant with a French ceremonial Maitre d´ that frowns on excess; it is less ideal in a country without a tradition for moderation. The subsequent lash out can be amusing where a hen party ends trying to act sober and cute in front of a jaded cop; it is far less so to see your touchy-feely employer come home drunk in a country where domestic employment is akin to servitude. I'm obviously exaggerating, but Westernisation (and simultaneous but unrelated issues, like working class disempowerment) has left many people wondering, and they found reasons to doubt.

If you are a traveller who mainly faces empowered businessmen , it is difficult to conceive good examples of this -- but many stories would make you pause. Vice.com (has a very criticisable editorial line, but) offers a unique look in many such examples: I remember a couple about plastic surgery that were very telling (and unexpected for people more used to judging people´s coding style on a screen than their physique on a dance floor), one in Korea the other in the Caribbean. International style magazine has lead Koreans to go under the knife and unreasonable amount of time to look more Westerners: nothing to do with SMTP in theory, but enough to let family members amalgamate Yahoo! editorial choices and their shame over a daughter´s botched operation. I have no idea what aspect of Western world leads women in the Central America to inject motor oil in their… Well, try to look for that episode if you care and care stand far more than gore (it is incredibly gross) but in it, you'll hear people accuse International standards and social media a lot. It is sad for Westerners living in an Emirate when that only bar where you can kiss in public without being scorned gets closed for `indecency´ but I suspect there are more nefarious things that have happened there than diplomats remembering their honeymoon in Paris. My experience is pushing on "What do you mean by corrupt Western values?" doesn't usually lead to a detailed description of a working democracy.

canjobear• 12 years ago

The claim that democracy and "Western values" would not work well in China due to cultural reasons is weakened by the fact that it seems to be doing fine in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, which have very similar cultural backgrounds.

westiseast3• 12 years ago

So freedom, open society or democracy wont work in China because... Chinese people are inherently alcoholic, corrupt and sexually abusive to their employees?

sagfafh4• 12 years ago

There should be more asians on HN, maybe I will create a version of HN specially for Asians, the amount of western anti-chinese vitriol is disgusting, I just gave you an upload, good luck.

mkawia2• 12 years ago

what's happening in Syria(and other middle east countries) is worse than autocracy.

Autocracy over a state in chaos anyday.

bilbo0s• 12 years ago

I think you understand different values to be important than a Chinese does. A Chinese may not care about open internet as much as you do. (Though even that is for different reasons than you outlined. ie-not so much because of 'decadent values' as much as because the average Chinese believes the West uses the internet and Western news media outlets to 'keep China down'. It's more for nationalistic reasons than for values reasons.) But to say that, therefore, people in China want more oppression... is a bit of a stretch. They just see the open internet as a tool of Western oppression, and they say, "Good. The government is protecting me from it."

Now on other issues, Chinese are also demanding to be protected. From things like corruption. However, because of the way things work in China... this desire to be protected from corruption, at times, actually ends up strengthening the central government as well. This is because the people who are normally... say... appropriating land illegally... are local officials. The local people, on the other hand, know that if they protest long enough, and loud enough, that Beijing will come. At which point things will go in a decidedly bad fashion for the local bosses. So Beijing comes off as their 'savior' in a lot of these cases as well.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I really think Chinese are looking at the problems they have from a different perspective than you do. From their perspective... Beijing is a help with a lot of their issues... not a hindrance or the cause. From their perspective, oppression hasn't 'doubled down', Beijing is ALLEVIATING a lot of oppression. Getting a better understanding of how Chinese people feel about things... in addition to an understanding of which issues they believe Beijing to be the cause of, might go a long way towards alleviating your frustrations.

Chronic302• 12 years ago

Beijing routinely sends it's military to remote regions and kills thousands of people (usually Muslims) and it never hits the world news.

Beijing also prevents information (as well as people) flowing from one part of the country to another, both physically and digitally, to prevent outbreaks (typically against the government).

These are just two examples. Please tell me how Beijing is alleviating oppression.

frozenport3• 12 years ago

> People just seem to prefer state controlled media or narratives that fit in with their biases

Except when they don't. For example, it is not unreasonable to say that Putin lost the presidential elections in many regions (recall news stories where they showed 150% of the vote). Most importantly this 'perceived' popularity leads to people not turning out to vote, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, the basis for Putin's universal popularity is 'precieved' popularity.

Many Chinese support their cultural superiority BUT many will quickly point out problems with their government and the need for reform.

The population that genuinely supports autocratic systems in Russia and China are in the minority, the rest are dis-disorganized, demoralized and confused but they are also in the majority. That why China runs their firewall.

> I personally don't have a big problem with this. Probably means less malware and cyberattacks for everyone.

The internet has a cultural program of uniting humanity which fosters understanding leading to practical things like trade and a less tit-for-tat aggression.

thesz2• 12 years ago

http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/2012fraud.asp

Even one county with 100% votes for Obama is a sign of fraud.

You are hooked on simple journalistic reporting mistake and this hook does not do good for you reasoning.

To be clear, I think that Western people through all their hiatory enjoed a wast energy surplus. There were reports by early US settlers about buffalo herds that was to ride around in a day! The same is true for Europe.

This means where westerners can get away with some freedom, russians have to be very tight in their energy budget. For China it is about same - small group rules huge and diverse population and has to schedule resources mindfully. The situation hasn't changed since forever.

If you want to help Russia and/or China, open your IP to them. Take profits from not-energy-constrained West, help energy constrained East.

cageface• 12 years ago

I've spoken to quite a few Russian tourists that were very vocal in their support for Putin. I'm sure he has his critics too but there are definitely people drinking the kool-aid.

vehementi• 12 years ago

often, without me even provoking them, will tell me how superior is is to western values, the same way Russians will also do.

Is this surprising or weighty to you considering that censored brainwashing culture they've grown up in?

They buy into the anti-Western narrative

They do not "buy into the anti-Western narrative", they are tricked into it.

All of this makes

The people have chosen an autocratic government and

Really silly.

mahyarm• 12 years ago

For those russians, I think it's more the general trend that people think whatever country / culture they've grown up in is the best. The french think they are the best people, the british think they're the best deep down inside, chinese think they're the best, americans think they're better than everyone, and the canadians think they're better than the americans. The mexicans are proud to be mexican, the malaysians are proud to be malaysian and so on. Everyone thinks they are the best in some way, even if they think all of the gringos have a lot of cash and you can't breathe the air in beijing.

The middle class think they're better than the lower and upper class, and the lower class think they're better than the rest. SF thinks it's better than NYC and those finance wonks with our software industry, NYC thinks it better than the rest of the world, and DC thinks I'm the center of power here!

My city's sports team is the best sports team, and screw my city's rivals! Xbox vs Playstation, this vs that. Those scary islamic people vs. my secular atheism or mormonism.

It's the human tribalism instinct, and it's turtles all the way down.

DanielBMarkham• 12 years ago

So if I want to start an email conversation with a vendor about some work I might need, they can't correspond with me because I'm on GMail? And this makes sense to the Chinese?

But on the bright side, looks like China will begin a struggle to stop "organ harvesting", a euphemism if I've ever seen one. (Not that the effort is forecast to be successful.)

From a meta narrative, it's interesting that there was a great push for centralization of everything, which Google benefited from. Now, due to political realities, we may be seeing another huge push for localization, even if it means owning one's own cloud server somewhere that one can VPN into.

kazinator• 12 years ago

Can mail server operators other than Google opt into this?

It would be an administrative simplification for me if China would block itself from my port 25.

manlio• 12 years ago

Slightly OT, but I'm going to travel through China in a couple days and before reading this thread I thought I could get away with my VPN (hosted on my Digital Ocean VPS) plus eventually Tor, but now I'm not quite sure anymore.

Could anybody shed light on this?

zirkus• 12 years ago

Not quite the same as what you're proposing but here's what I did. My parents were living in china for a few years and I set them up with a squid server on ec2 tokyo region micro instance with a script that would create a ssh tunnel to it and configured the browser to use it. Little hacky but it worked fine.

djvu93• 12 years ago

VPN is roughly ok as long as your IP address is not in the blacklist. But it could be unstable. The GFW may drop your connections from time to time. I am not sure about Tor but I believe it probably doesn't work any more. Private VPN/shadowsocks is now the majority I think.

silviogutierrez2• 12 years ago

Out of curiosity: what does shadowsocks do that regular SSH tunneling doesn't do?

Why is an entire program needed just to run a simple ssh command? I couldn't find any info on the matter.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

VPN most likely will work if your server IP is not banned. Tor used to work but was not working last time (one ore two months ago) I tried again. Prepare a SSH tunnel as a backup solution.

azmenak• 12 years ago

I've been living in China for over 4 months now, using a simple VPN I setup on Digital Ocean has been the most stable (tunnel stays open for as long as the internet connection is available)

Tor is semi-blocked here, you won't be able to establish a connection to the network without a tunnel.

runewell• 12 years ago

I have only been to HK and Macau but never to the China mainland. Pardon my ignorance, but why does the Chinese government bother to censor the Internet? Are the people in China not happy with the progress that has occurred over the past few decades? Is the government really that concerned with their populace discussing politics or sensitive issues openly? Do Chinese provinces consider themselves to be separate and distinct or is it more like US states where the differences are superficial and the division is unimportant?

It seems to me the US doesn't have much leverage regarding this particular issue. We would be best served working harder towards more affordable and flexible manufacturing automation so we can be more self-reliant.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

I think the reasons include, but might not limited to two reasons:

1 - Prevent the people from reading and discussion sensitive issues - there are so many of them.

2 - Prevent the people from knowing universal values.

timguoqk• 12 years ago

To answer your questions: Chinese government obviously bothers and is very concerned, for many cultural and historical reasons that cannot be easily summarized. Provinces do not have so much power. It's completely different from US. China has been a centralized country since ancient time and the communist party is really good at executing the decision of the central government.

djvu93• 12 years ago

I think the Chinese government works more like a gang than the kind of government you are familiar with. The only politically correct thing is to maintain the ruling, and the real motivations are nothing uncommon: power and money, and most of the time the latter.

The great firewall project is a big business for a lot of people (e.g., billions dollars business if not much more). Hardware providers look for the deals. Professors in universities look for funds (for themselves and for their students). And the biggest cut would be bribes for officials and commissions for pimps. The worst part is this business is sort of under table and there is not much control.

All these people want this business to stay and grow under the name of glorious "reasons", and there is just zero motive for people to get in its way.

umanwizard• 12 years ago

To add to what others said, the Chinese government is a bit obsessed with the Soviet collapse, which many in the Chinese system see as having been causes by liberalizing too quickly. Gorbachev allowed freedom of speech and the Union disintegrated soon after, and that was before we had communication force multipliers like the Internet.

It's not necessarily completely self serving; many Chinese leaders do have their people's interests at heart. (Not all do, of course.) It's easy to argue that the many of the former Soviet republics are doing much worse now than they were in 1989.

fidotron• 12 years ago

It's fairly interesting to contrast the reaction here with that whenever Uber is involved. Google violate laws in China, but apparently that's to be encouraged, yet if Uber do the same in a nice supposed liberal democracy they are to be criticised?

As it stands end users are reduced to pawns in the emerging power struggle between governments and multinationals.

skwirl• 12 years ago

What law did Google break that caused gmail to be shut down? According to the article the Chinese government denies doing anything.

I also don't think you understand HN very well. What is supported is not supported on grounds of legality but on what is viewed as good for people as a whole. "What is legal is what is right and what is right is what is legal" is the antithesis of how most hackers think.

roylez• 12 years ago

Chinese Gmail user here. Now the easiest way to access Gmail is via Mailbox. No kidding. It works on my android phone and Macbook, and should do as well on iPhone. The first time of use requires a proxy, but afterwards it is okay without any. My guess is email information is partially saved on Dropbox servers by Mailbox. I don't know for how long Mailbox would continue to work though. when it doesn't work, I will have to use a SSH tunnel every time checking emails.

footpath• 12 years ago

Here is an editorial from Global Times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Times, a government mouthpiece known for its ardent pro-Party slant): http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/899197.shtml

Some select quotes:

"The problems with Gmail access this time may be caused by the China side, by Google itself or a combination of the two. But Western media pointed the finger at Chinese authorities immediately, accusing them of strengthening its cyber censorship. This is far too simple a hypothesis. It should be noted that Google voluntarily quit the mainland market in 2010. The issue at heart is to what extent Google is willing to obey Chinese law, on which China's attitude is steadfast."

"In this sense, it's dubious that China "blocked" Gmail simply over security concerns. Since both Google and China haven't given an explanation and meanwhile Gmail is a technically complex system, there may be some puzzling reasons behind the incident.

"If the China side indeed blocked Gmail, the decision must have been prompted by newly emerged security reasons. If that is the case, Gmail users need to accept the reality of Gmail being suspended in China. But we hope it is not the case."

The article's original Chinese version can be found here: http://tech.huanqiu.com/internet/2014-12/5313893.html

Curiously, the English version is missing the following two paragraphs:

"中美围绕互联网既有合作，亦有摩擦，双方的相互适应过程仍在继续。由于中美关系庞大而复杂，互联网问题只是其中一部分，外部变数的影响也是存在的。"(Third to last paragraph)

My translation: In regards to the Internet, China and the US both cooperate and experience some frictions, so the mutual adaptation process of the two sides continues. Due to the complexity of the Sino-US relationship, Internet issues are only a part of it, and there also exist other external variables.

"因此无论Gmail“失联”是谷歌还是中方的原因，或者是复合原因，使用者们不妨顺其自然，做多手准备。中国发展有过多难以计数的磕绊和插曲，这个故事又算得了什么。"(Last paragraph)

My translation: Whether Gmail's "losing contact" is caused by Google or China, or a combination thereof, users should just go with the flow, and be prepared with other backup plans. China's development process has been met with countless stumbles and other interludes, so this story doesn't really matter in the end.

horacex• 12 years ago

this is so stupid. we are a startup team from China using Google's Apps service. So far most of mainstream mail provider like 163.com and qq.com can still exchange email with gmail. But without VPN we can't send/receive mails from mobile.

epynonymous3• 12 years ago

i didn't rtfa, but this is nothing new, i've been in shanghai since 2007, afaik, google services (including gmail) have been hard to access, it was really after eric schmidt put the assault on china by making things public (circa 2010) that things started to get to really bad. from memory, 50% of the time, google services (search, gmail, apis, compute engine, office apps, etc) would not work back in 2007, in 2010 probably 80% of access would fail, and recently in the past year and a half, it's been almost 99% to now 100%.

i've already started a backup strategy long ago (about 8 months ago) as the frustration was just started to drive me crazy, I migrated all my services to either local equivalents or microsoft (outlook.com), but there's only a matter of time before those perhaps also get blocked.

of similar relation, ever since the snowden leaks, it seems that china has started looking to ban or outright limit foreign technology services used by the china government which is basically almost like everything, the nickname is qu ioe, qu which stands for out/oust, ioe stands for ibm, oracle, and emc.

note that vpn still seems to work, and if you're traveling on a roaming mobile service, you can still access google services (and others like facebook, twitter, youtube), but if you're plugging into the hotel wifi without vpn, good f'ing luck. note that i also work at a foreign national software company in china, the office can access these services uninhibited since we have an mpls to the main office in the valley.

if you're living in china and dependent on foreign services/apis like google then it's really hard because you must have vpn or some equivalent. i suggest even using a jumpbox.

epynonymous3• 12 years ago

for the record, i don't work for microsoft, so note trying to shamelessly solicit outlook, reading back on my post, i imagine some would think so.

edwinyzh9• 12 years ago

Hi, maybe I ask what's "mpls", did a Google search but had no luck.

melchebo• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN

gebegb• 12 years ago

Oh yeah, let more people see through the nature of the RED empire.

It's funny that they even hosted a world internet conference recently.

kaptain2• 12 years ago

Any HN'rs who live in China use Fastmail? Can you share your experience?

I'm thinking of switching over but my primary concern is whether Fastmail encounters similar problems to Gmail. (You might recommend using a VPN all the time, but that doesn't always work for me).

invaliddata• 12 years ago

I have friends and family who are Chinese. Although it is not a universal ttuth, the fact is that many Chinese see the west only as something to be exploited, and do not wish to play by the same rules. This applies to individuals who have come here to work, not just the government or Chinese businessmen. The sentiment is that China was exploited inygr past, and now it is time for payback. One deals with China and Chinese without this backgroud at one's peril.

seanmcdirmid3• 12 years ago

There is some of that, but it isn't "getting back." Its like going to Italy and getting ripped off as a tourist; there are plenty of people looking around for an opportunity for a quick buck on the gullible, Foreigner or Chinese. Then couple that with poor rule of law that make scams and unfair exploitation feasible, and you have China (as opposed to say Singapore, which is mostly Chinese but rule of law is strong and people are less hungry for a quick buck).

fan123199• 12 years ago

Gmail blocked shocked me a lot. I was optimistic about the future of China's speech environment by new Chairman Xi's comming, but from he got the power, the condition is not changed, still bad, and even worse. The internet block is more aggressive and now the gmail is blocked. This is my baseline because email is very individual services. I think it's time to think about immigrating abroad.

known• 12 years ago

This URL appears to be accessible from mainland China.

http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com

Gmail blocked in China

Related Stories