The Great Firewall of China is the term used by many to describe China’s concerted effort to screen information going into and out of the country. The idea closely resembles that of The Great Wall in that it helps protect the country’s borders from intruders as well as preventing secure data within from leaking out. Today, China’s great firewall checks every transaction that crosses Chinese borders severely impairing the ease with which data can be transferred from within to outside and vice versa.
The Consequence of the Great Firewall
The implementation of the great firewall essentially made it harder for businesses to communicate with their counterparts within China unless they are comfortable with being screened and eavesdropped upon by the government. It has also created serious problems in terms of getting in touch with friends and family in China. Not only are common social media networks like Facebook and Twitter banned in the mainland but these are substitute with local counterparts which are likewise inaccessible to people from the outside.
The great firewall, therefore, encompasses multiple facets of life that in turn create upsetting effects for many people:
- It disrupts the ability of businesses to easily transfer data from one office to another. If you are based in London and would want to look up the data from your counterpart office in Shanghai, that’s a transaction that requires so much more than just logging into a browser to get the data you want. This leads to serious inefficiencies in the way data is handled and transferred.
- If you are an expat in China and you need to communicate to loved ones outside of the country, you essentially don’t have Facebook and Twitter to do it. At the very least, you are stuck with phone calls. Not even Skype can work for you.
- In the same way, as an expat, you will not be able to access content that you typically want such as video streaming from Netflix or Hulu. Limitations in the network accessibility will prevent you from doing anything beyond checking local Chinese websites which are most likely encoded in Mandarin.
Solving the Great Firewall Dilemma
Only a China VPN connection can resolve the issues associated with the great firewall. A VPN China account essentially opens up all the typical communication channels that are blocked with the firewall. Most corporations with a China office actually use this setup to ensure that data flows smoothly from one country to another despite the firewall.
Obviously, as individual users, it would help to also have the best VPN for China so you can go ahead and maintain your personal connections without the hassle of being blocked or screened or eavesdropped on.
If have business to do in China, or friends you want to be connected to; or if you will be based in China and need a way of staying in contact with friends in other parts of the world, your best bet is with a China VPN. It’s simple, easy to use, and effective in keeping your connections open. You should never leave for China without it.
Bashir is a VPN blogger who writes about VPN Service