Most Web users attempting to bypass China’s Great Firewall strive for a virtual passageway that will allow them to access the wider internet without being subject to censorship. For which the need for the Virtual Private Network arises, that’s why VPNRanks and other reputed cybersecurity reviewers have recommended the VPNs for China to browse through restricted content. China, one of the countries with the most extensive surveillance systems worldwide, has closed its borders since the pandemic’s inception. Researchers and professors have also expressed concern about how the digital window into China appears to be closing. As China shuts out the world, internet access from abroad gets harder too. That adds to rising concern for China experts regarding cybersecurity, who are barred from entering the nation due to the worsening relations with the West. As internet access becomes more restricted, observers will find it more difficult to understand any internal pressures that China’s leader Xi Jinping may be under and to keep up with Beijing’s technological, diplomatic, and military aspirations. In-depth investigation on whom China’s Great Firewall bars out browsing is rare; instead, domestic censorship continues to garner most of the spotlight when evaluating the nation’s browsing liberty. However, many scholars who have encountered these obstacles think that China is trying to deter what it regards as foreign interference by limiting access to them to promote its own strictly controlled narrative to the international world. The web availability in China can be used to make unfavorable comments on the Chinese Stakeholders. International Journalists employ virtual private networks, or VPNs, that tunnel internet traffic via servers in several geographic locations to get around web traffic jams. Although Chinese internet users frequently utilize it as a means of getting through the Great Firewall. However, VPNs aren’t error-free, though. Due to Chinese authorities’ strict measures, connection into and out of China is now difficult and unpredictable. WeChat, the commonly used social messaging application owned by Chinese gaming giant Tencent, is one alternative information source that web users have counted on. Various party agencies operate their own WeChat sites where they issue notifications, however, accessing the pertinent content on a mobile device necessitates a lot of browsing. Graham Webster, the director of the Stanford University Cyber Policy Center’s DigiChina Project, has been seeking a way to use Weibo since he lost his Chinese phone and, therefore, his account. WeChat, the commonly used social messaging application owned by Chinese gaming giant Tencent, is one alternative information source that web users have counted on. In addition, various party agencies operate their own WeChat sites where they issue notifications, however, accessing the pertinent content on a mobile device necessitates a lot of browsing. But in recent years, Chinese sites like Weibo, WeChat, and others have added additional screening, such as a Chinese mobile number and official identification, making it more challenging for foreigners to register for an account. These regulations may, in some situations, be more stringent than geoblocking, disabling access to resources, including industry databases, online discussions, and government documents. Nevertheless, it’s not only China that censors access to critical information for international internet users. The U.S. government allegedly blocked access to approximately 50 websites from mainland China and Hong Kong. In a 2020 report from Censored Planet, an organization monitors internet freedom and censorship. These websites included official army webpages and databases of economic statistics. However, China appears to have more comprehensive data control. Researchers and academicians assert that the federal government has made documents and data internet accessible over the past ten years. However, in recent years, as China has grown increasingly concerned with its global reputation and contemptuous of the West, this level of transparency has clashed with a drive to dissuade foreigners from looking in. Maya Wang, the senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, described the issue as one of openness growing in opposition to the current trend toward closedness. The result is a strange hybrid environment where, if you go through all these hoops, you can get a lot of information—even if they weren’t intended for access in the first place. Apart from frequently attempting to imitate a Chinese locale, some foreigners who have devised ways to get around blocks have been unwilling to divulge details for fear that these channels would also be restricted. China expert Katherine Kaup, a scholar at Furman University, said the nation’s transformations had pushed her and others to consider new research topics and methodologies altogether. However, she has reservations about traveling to China in the future for topic work. Even digital conversations with people there have been hampered by anxieties about the consequences of speaking too publicly in the face of escalating censorship of dissent.
