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Gmail Access Is Blocked in China After Months of Disruption China Adds New Barrier To Gmail
(about 11 hours later)
BEIJING — The Chinese government appears to have blocked the ability of people in China to gain access to Google’s email service through third-party email clients, which many Chinese and foreigners had been relying on to use their Gmail accounts after an earlier blocking effort by officials, according to Internet analysts and users in China. BEIJING — The Chinese government appears to have blocked the ability of people in China to gain access to Google’s email service through third-party email services like Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook, which many Chinese and foreigners had been relying on to use their Gmail accounts after an earlier blocking effort by officials, according to Internet analysts and users in China.
The blocking began last Friday and has ignited anger and frustration among many Internet users in China. Data from Google shows traffic to Gmail dropping to zero from Chinese servers. The blocking began on Friday and has ignited anger and frustration among many Internet users in China. Data from Google shows traffic to Gmail dropping to zero from Chinese servers.
The new step in blocking Gmail has consequences that go well beyond making it difficult for users to access personal emails. Some foreign companies use Gmail as their corporate email service, for example. Now, the companies will have to ensure that their employees have software known as VPNs, or virtual private networks, to access Gmail. But it is not just a matter of convenience for Chinese Internet users. Some foreign companies use Gmail as their corporate email service, for example, and so companies will have to ensure that employees have V.P.N., or virtual private network, software to get into Gmail.
That software allows users to bypass the Chinese Internet censorship controls commonly known as the Great Firewall, but the authorities also attempt to inhibit the software. That software allows users to bypass the Chinese Internet censorship controls commonly known as the Great Firewall, although the authorities also try to inhibit that software.
People in China began noticing the new blocking method over the weekend, as their phones, tablets and computers failed to download emails from Gmail accounts if the users did not have VPN software switched on. Until now, the devices had been able to download Gmail to clients like Apple Mail or Microsoft’s Outlook. Those clients use the protocols IMAP, POP3 and SMTP to download the emails. Google is not the only company to be censored inside China. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is essentially blocked there. Its Instagram photo-sharing service was briefly blocked this fall when pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong began using it to share photos with mainland Chinese users.
For months, that has been the most common way for people in China to keep using Gmail. The Chinese government had blocked access to the Gmail website and other Google websites around the 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, protests and fatal government response in Tiananmen Square. When LinkedIn began offering a Chinese-language version of its business social network this year, it had to agree to censor content seen by Chinese users.
Google has for years been a target of the Chinese government, and some official publications have cited the company as one component of a Western conspiracy to undermine China. For example, Chinese officials had insisted Google censor its search results, a request that angered some top executives at Google, and they refused to comply. Chinese companies like Baidu, which has a popular search engine here, benefit from the official crackdown on Google. This time, Gmail appeared to have been singled out. Representatives for Yahoo and Microsoft said on Monday that the companies had heard no complaints from users in China about their email services being blocked.
Chinese and foreign Internet users in China expressed their frustration on Monday at the government’s new blocking measures. United States tech companies want badly to have a larger presence in China, but have mostly been foiled by local competition and government controls.
“They shouldn’t have blocked Google or Gmail; it’s against the spirit of the Internet,” Yuan Shengang, the chief executive of Netentsec, a Beijing-based cybersecurity company, said in a telephone interview. “As far as we can tell, the only U.S. Internet company that has really ‘succeeded’ in China is Yahoo, because Jerry Yang and Terry Semel had the vision and the luck to invest in Alibaba a hundred years ago,” wrote Mark Mahaney, an Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, in a recent note to clients. “No other Internet company has managed to gain material traction in China, with government opposition one key factor.”
One Chinese technology news website, 36kr, said in an article on the disruption that “such complete access failure to Gmail has no precedent.” China’s position is that the world’s second-largest economy is open to United States tech companies, but only on the ruling party’s terms. Those terms are essentially to do business through local partnerships, to host data on Chinese soil — where the government has access to it — and to remove anything the party deems offensive. Investing in these controls is the de facto tax on entering China.
Luo Zhiqiu, a lecturer in English at Nanjing University, wrote on his microblog on Sunday that “it’s a critical moment for many students who are currently applying for overseas universities.” Google has prominently refused those demands, which has for years made it a target of the Chinese government. Google does have limited business in the country, like ad sales, and it recently opened the Google Play store to Chinese developers, allowing them to build apps for Android devices outside of China. But the company’s consumer-facing services, like Gmail, have largely been blocked since 2010.
Some official publications have cited the company as one component of a Western conspiracy to undermine China. For example, Chinese officials had insisted Google censor its search results, angering some top executives at Google, who refused to comply.
So while the latest Gmail-blocking tactics are new, the idea is the same: to block Google, wherever it is, in hopes of causing users enough frustration that they migrate to services like Baidu, a Chinese company that has a popular search engine here, that adhere to party rules.
People in China began noticing the new blocking of Gmail over the weekend, as their third-party mail applications failed to download emails from Gmail accounts if the users did not have V.P.N. software switched on.
For months, using such mail programs has been the most common way for people in China to keep using Gmail. The Chinese government blocked access to Gmail’s website and other Google websites around the 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, protests and fatal government response in Tiananmen Square.
But this new move frustrated Chinese and foreign Internet users in the country.
“It’s against the spirit of the Internet,” said Yuan Shengang, chief executive of NetentSec, a Beijing-based cybersecurity company, in a telephone interview.
A Chinese technology news website, 36Kr, said in an article that “such complete access failure to Gmail has no precedent.”
Luo Zhiqiu, a lecturer in English at Nanjing University, wrote on his microblog on Sunday that the interference came at “a critical moment for many students who are currently applying for overseas universities.”
“Their contact emails are Gmails,” he wrote. “Such blockage brings great inconvenience. Many years later, when they will consider whether they should go back to China, this experience might lead them to choose, without hesitation, not to return.”“Their contact emails are Gmails,” he wrote. “Such blockage brings great inconvenience. Many years later, when they will consider whether they should go back to China, this experience might lead them to choose, without hesitation, not to return.”
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, was asked at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing about the blocking. She said she knew nothing about it.A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, was asked at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing about the blocking. She said she knew nothing about it.
“China has consistently had a welcoming and supportive attitude towards foreign investors doing legitimate business here,” she said. “We will, as always, provide an open, transparent and good environment for foreign companies in China.”“China has consistently had a welcoming and supportive attitude towards foreign investors doing legitimate business here,” she said. “We will, as always, provide an open, transparent and good environment for foreign companies in China.”
Last Thursday, Red Flag, a theoretical Communist Party journal, published an article by two scholars from the National Defense University that called for greater regulation and monitoring of Internet use in China. The article said foreign organizations or companies, including the United States State Department, were constantly looking for ways to help Internet users in China “break through the Internet,” or get around China’s censorship controls. China needed to take “powerful measures,” including cutting off the distribution of software that allows users to get around the controls, wrote the authors, Zhao Zhouxian and Xu Zhidong. Last Thursday, Red Flag, a Communist Party journal focused on political theory, published an article by two scholars from the National Defense University that called for greater regulation and monitoring of Internet use in China. The article said foreign organizations or companies, including the United States State Department, were constantly looking for ways to help Internet users in China get around China’s censorship controls. China needed to take “powerful measures” in response, wrote the authors, Zhao Zhouxian and Xu Zhidong.
In November, Lu Wei, the top Internet regulator in China, presided over a conference in Zhejiang Province that had some attendees from foreign technology companies; Mr. Lu stressed the need for nations to have “Internet sovereignty,” meaning the countries should be able to create and control their own online space. In November, Lu Wei, the top Internet regulator in China, presided over a conference in Zhejiang Province that had some attendees from foreign technology companies. Mr. Lu stressed the need for nations to have “Internet sovereignty,” meaning countries should be able to create and control their own online space.
This month, Mr. Lu went to the United States to visit technology companies there on what was billed as a fact-finding mission. Chinese authorities blocked the websites of The New York Times and Bloomberg News after both news organizations published separate stories in 2012 on the family wealth of party leaders. Those websites remain blocked and cannot be seen without V.P.N. software.
He met separately with Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook; Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon; and Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple.
While giving Mr. Lu a tour of Facebook’s headquarters in California, Mr. Zuckerberg pointed out a copy of the book “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” on his desk. Mr. Xi is the Chinese president and head of the Communist Party, and the book is a collection of his speeches and essays. Facebook is blocked in China, and Mr. Zuckerberg has said he would like to have Facebook unblocked and do business in the country.
Chinese authorities blocked the websites of The New York Times and Bloomberg News after both news organizations published separate stories in 2012 on the family wealth of party leaders. Those websites remain blocked and cannot be seen without VPN software that gets around the Great Firewall.
Shanshan Wang contributed research.