Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of CCP’s mouthpiece Global Times, wrote a Weibo post questioning the confiscation. His Weibo post was later deleted. [0]

Whether the post was deleted by himself or by a censor, the central government is complicit in banning VPN and this is more than an independent move by a local government (unless you think the local government has substantial influence on Hu Xijin or the censor).

In fact another Guangdong man was also fined in 2018 for using VPN [1]. All these are in addition to prosecution of sales of VPN [2][3]. What makes you think this is an independent move by a local government?

[0] https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E7%A8%8B%E5%BC%...

[1] https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003431

[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-man-arrested-after-mak...

[3] https://www.dw.com/en/chinese-entrepreneur-sentenced-to-over...