China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.
I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that?
But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.
All the talk of a digital services trade war/import ban ignores that US tech companies were facing a de facto export ban from the US side by being prohibited from complying with Chinese regulations.
One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.
None of those services need apps, I never used apps to access them.
Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working.
They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.
There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime.
Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it.
There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available.
Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave.
This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form.
She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on.
I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.
The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.
They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck.
This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.
Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access.
I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
That might be to do with going to a Digital Ocean IP, but if you can use an innocent IP, anything works. So what benefit is Outline supposedly offering?
That's not how it works. The apps are not officially banned, they are just unavailable or don't work. If they're not on the China iOS store (separate than US) then you can't install them, and if you went abroad and managed to install them, they just can't connect to the IG or whatever servers once you're back in China. Same for Android.
But that overt request was unusual. Most apps are simply removed as part of Apple's "compliance with local regulations".
For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers?
Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.
So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.
I think the era of hockey-stick growth and development China is more or less over now, growth will continue but slow to a drip, and will face 3 threats: rising economic inequality, drying up of external joint ventures, and male-female ratio demographics imbalance. It has BRI going for it but external investments can't address domestic structural socioeconomic concerns. Xi will be blamed first because he rode economics to the top of the mountain. I'm concerned that starting a war, a common political tactic for any government system, maybe used to distract from domestic economic woes.
China's housing market is its biggest problem. Most people invested their savings in second/third/etc. apartments as the stock market was notoriously unreliable (and investing abroad was very difficult). That means that a tremendous amount of middle-to-upper-class wealth is tied up in property values, creating a tremendous bubble. But the gov cannot let the bubble pop (see Evergrande, others before), as Japan did in the 90s, as that is the one thing that (in my opinion) could actually bring the CCP down.
I am suspicious that BRI might be more hot air than substance. That or world journalism is oblivious to what is supposedly the largest international infrastructure program in the world. Or Google doesn't index it.
I remember that era fondly as the golden era of unfettered torrenting.
That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have.
If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.
Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.
"Every Han Chinese of a certain background" is the more accurate reference.
the vast majority of the population cannot easily use a VPN, especially not on their phone which many people use instead of a PC