Climbing the Digital Wall: How Breaking China’s Firewall Became a Punishable Offense

Luna Tian

“I want to see the world, but I keep hitting a wall.”
— Comment under Namewee’s song “Outside the Wall”

When Malaysian rapper and filmmaker Namewee released his song Outside the Wall, he likely didn’t expect such an emotional storm. Listeners across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan filled the comment sections with cries of despair and longing—for the truth, for freedom, for a world that lies just beyond a digital curtain.

In China, this curtain is real. Known as the Great Firewall (GFW), it is one of the most comprehensive internet censorship systems in the world. It blocks websites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia, and filters out keywords deemed sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But beyond the technical jargon of “IP blocking” and “keyword filtering,” this story is really about people: ordinary citizens who just want to connect with the wider world—and the harsh punishments they face for trying.

The Rise of the “Crime” of VPN Use

For decades, Chinese users have found creative ways to bypass online censorship. Known colloquially as “climbing the wall” (翻墙), this often involves using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), proxy tools, or encrypted tunnels to reach content blocked by the GFW.

But since 2014, the Chinese government has been cracking down—hard.

From Toolmakers to Criminals

2014: Xu Dong, developer of a VPN tool called Maple Banana, was arrested after expressing support for Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement on Twitter. He was later charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”—a vague charge often used to silence dissent.
2015: The creator of the open-source project Shadowsocks—known by the pseudonym clowwindy—announced they had been “invited for tea” (a euphemism for police interrogation) and would cease maintaining the software. Though the tool survived thanks to open-source contributors, it marked a turning point: even silent coders were now targets.
2018: People like Dai, a software engineer in Shanghai, were sentenced to three years in prison (suspended) and fined for selling VPN accounts online. His servers allowed users to access blocked websites. His punishment was officially for “providing programs and tools for illegal access to computer information systems.”

Punished for Logging On

Until recently, the government focused mostly on what people did once they were outside the wall—such as criticizing the CCP on Twitter or reading banned books. But since 2019, merely establishing an unauthorized international connection—i.e., using a VPN—has been enough to get you punished.

Shandong (2021): A man was fined 5,000 yuan just for using a VPN.
Guangdong (2018–2019): Several people were fined 1,000 yuan under the same regulation. In one case, the fine for using a VPN was higher than the local penalty for drug possession.
Sichuan: Jiang Peng was caught using Turbo VPN and Shadowrocket to browse YouTube and shop on Amazon. He was given a warning and an order to disconnect.
Ankang, Shaanxi (2020): A man was fined 500 yuan and formally warned. His crime? Downloading Laowang VPN and Ant VPN to read overseas news.

When Tweets Become Evidence

Some cases go beyond fines. In Wuhan, a man was arrested and sentenced to one year and three months in prison in 2019. His crime? Posting messages on Twitter criticizing the Party and advocating political reform. His use of VPNs was cited as part of the prosecution.

And it gets more absurd.

2020, Hunan: A man was punished for using VPNs to view pornography on overseas websites.
Zhejiang: A user was formally reprimanded for accessing Wikipedia.

These cases aren’t rare outliers. In October 2020, Zhejiang’s provincial government publicly posted dozens of administrative punishment announcements for VPN use. The tools mentioned included SSR, Lantern, Shadowrocket, and soft routers. The targets included regular citizens and even small businesses.

A Legal Gray Zone Turned Weapon

The legal basis for these punishments often rests on an obscure regulation from 1996, the “Temporary Provisions for the Administration of International Computer Networks.” It states that only the Ministry of Telecommunications can authorize international internet connections and that violators may face up to 15,000 yuan in fines.

However, the rule was never meant to apply to individuals downloading apps in the age of smartphones. It was a Cold War-era holdover—until it was weaponized.

In 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a new draft regulation that renamed the Great Firewall the “Cross-border Data Security Gateway”—a chilling attempt to legitimize its digital iron curtain. The document bans the creation or distribution of any software, tools, or infrastructure that bypasses it.

Not everyone sees VPNs the same way.

In February 2022, Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu stirred controversy by saying on Instagram that “anyone in China can download a VPN from the App Store—it’s literally free.” Her casual remark sparked a firestorm. While she may have had special access as a foreign national, ordinary Chinese netizens found themselves censored or punished just for quoting her.

Meanwhile, state media has ramped up its messaging. On May 1, 2023, several local government outlets, including Urumqi’s Tianshan District, warned of the “dangers of circumvention.” They labeled VPN use as a threat to national security and equated it with disinformation and espionage.

In a particularly Orwellian turn, they also defined game accelerators—apps used to speed up online games—as a form of VPN use, implying that even gaming could be “anti-state behavior.”

Climbing Walls, Paying the Price

To the Chinese authorities, “climbing the wall” isn’t just about internet access—it’s about control.
Control over what people see.
Control over what they think.
And control over who gets to speak.

Yet despite the risks, millions continue to climb.
Students looking for real academic papers.
Journalists seeking uncensored news.
Parents trying to video chat with their children overseas.
Activists documenting state violence.
Even those who just want to hear a different voice, to know they are not alone.

They know the price.
But sometimes, freedom is worth the climb.

References

This blog post draws from administrative records, court verdicts, digital rights reports, and media articles spanning 2014–2022. For security reasons, some names and locations have been anonymized.