
Gmail blocked in China - brandonheato
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/29/google-china-idUSL3N0UD21W20141229
======
est
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.

~~~
3pt14159
Why doesn't my tunnel work in China?

~~~
salmonellaeater
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.

~~~
3pt14159
Ah. Seems dumb of them. There are millions of Chinese people all around the
world that will be trying to email their family back home. Why block just one
email provider? Why try to segregate yourself from the world's email network?
It isn't even going to work because what every Chinese person will do is get a
tunnel to sign up for the non-Chinese email service (maybe even Gmail!) and it
will just further push people to use encryption.

If the Chinese government were shrewd, they would do what the American
government does: make using American servers as easy as possible then spy on
the contents.

~~~
Chronic30
Why block one email provider? Because China isn't a fan of Google. Yes they
will be cut off from the world. But if you want to communicate with the
Chinese, you will simply use something other than Gmail.

~~~
diminoten
China might have figured out how to read the other major email providers.

If I worked in Yahoo!'s SOC this'd put me on high alert.

------
drzaiusapelord
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.

~~~
bertil
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.

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

~~~
sremani
The honest truth is liberal democracies do not come to fruition in vacuum,
Elections are necessary but not sufficient condition for a functioning
democracy. Afghanistan has multiple elections, Ukraine has elections, Iraq has
elections, what is the state of affairs in these countries. There are subtle
and messier parts in Democracy and every society cannot support it given their
historical context - most societies have to evolve to certain point of
maturity for democracy to take root and more years of practice of it to have
it to work as intended.

~~~
westiseast
It just sounds like excuses - which democratic country resolved _all_ (or
any?) of their problems with gender inequality, violence, alcohol, corruption
etc. before instituting democracy?

In any case, Gmail is just one of many email tools - if Chinese people are so
culturally unprepared to deal with Gmail, how are they culturally prepared to
deal with QQ Mail, or Weibo/Weixin for that matter? This is just further
censorship of a tool either for economic/protectionist reasons, or because it
protects the CCP's hold on power. I'd struggle to see this as part of any plan
to gradually implement democracy or as part of any uniquely 'Chinese'
democratic development.

------
kaptain
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.

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

~~~
fatjokes
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?

------
kweks
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
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.

------
akramhussein
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.

~~~
WhitneyLand
>>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
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.

~~~
interdrift
Ummm...fight for your rights?

~~~
CamperBob2
Interestingly, "fighting for your rights" seems to be one of those things that
works only when a small minority is doing the fighting. For instance, the
American revolution was instigated and conducted by a few discontented
landholders, without seeking permission or widespread acceptance from the
broader population. If the means for widespread democratic input had existed
in the years leading up to 1776, would Washington have been able to mobilize
successfully? Or would the mainstream media have been co-opted by the British
to proclaim him a "radical dissident" or a "terrorist," hopelessly
marginalizing the revolutionaries?

That's the problem that any would-be Chinese or Russian revolutionary faces.
Earlier revolutions could be conducted with the involvement of only 10-15% of
the population, but these days, you can't do much to change things even with
80% of the population behind you.

------
blisterpeanuts
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.

~~~
smilekzs
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.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
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.

~~~
peteretep

        > a government that
    

Government is (usually) made of people. These people all want different
things. This is as true as the Chinese government as it is of the US
government.

A litany of complaints against the Chinese government can go on and on and on,
but it's not (anymore) a single person dictatorship, nor is it an obvious
kleptocracy despite robust corruption. Its claim of being a government for and
by the people stands up to scrutiny, even if its methods and outcomes are
oppressive and aren't democratic.

    
    
        > rolls tanks against its own citizens
    

The same way you influence the other one that deploys military-grade/style
equipment against its people[1], by attempting to influence members of that
government.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-
polic...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-
departments.html)

------
kazinator
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.

------
devll
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
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

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

------
eitally
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
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?

------
roylez
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.

------
invaliddata
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.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
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).

------
runewell
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.

~~~
djvu9
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.

------
DanielBMarkham
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.

------
praptak
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.

~~~
sindarknave
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.

------
freakyterrorist
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
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.

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

------
epynonymous
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.

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

~~~
melchebo
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN)

------
fan123199
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.

------
footpath
Here is an editorial from Global Times
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](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](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._

------
kaptain
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).

------
manlio
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?

~~~
djvu9
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.

~~~
silviogutierrez
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.

~~~
djvu9
Shadowsocks is (arguably) easier to use for ordinary people and better
informed. Most people don't even have command line experience before. After
all this is one problem limited in one country which couldn't be freely
discussed so choices may not be "optimal" in some sense.

~~~
silviogutierrez
Ah thanks. So it doesn't actually offer additional functionality, then?

The best tool I've ever used was
[https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle](https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle) ,
because it was far lower level than a proxy. Unfortunately, it's super
unstable on modern OSX versions.

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

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

~~~
BillFranklin
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.

------
known
This URL appears to be accessible from mainland China.

[http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com](http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com)

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

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

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

------
horacex
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.

------
fown9
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?

~~~
frozenport
>>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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy)

------
gebegb
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.

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

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illumen
Trade war imminent?

~~~
thomasato
I wonder that as well.

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

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

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xnull2guest
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
It is good that China is protecting their citizens like this maybe Europe can
do it too.

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fidotron
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
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.

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atoponce
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.

~~~
edwinyzh
If you guys are having a difficulty understanding what is 50 cent party
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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...](http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/27/content_31021911.htm)),
I guess atoponce can be an example.

~~~
atoponce
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_China)

