The Great Firewall of China, officially known as the Golden Shield Project, is an extensive internet censorship system designed to prevent access to specific foreign websites and control the flow of information online. It’s the most advanced and comprehensive censorship program in the world, employing a variety of methods to monitor, filter, and even alter internet traffic between China and other countries.
The primary reasons behind this strict control include supporting the Chinese Communist Party’s internet policies and promoting domestic alternatives to foreign platforms. By blocking popular international sites, China encourages the use of homegrown platforms like WeChat and Weibo, which allows the government to better manage and moderate content.
But the Great Firewall goes beyond simply blocking websites; it uses sophisticated techniques to scan URLs, webpages, and even specific keywords. These tactics ensure that any undesirable content is filtered out, giving authorities tight control over what users within China can access.
The How and What of The Great Firewall of China
The Great Firewall of China is something that isn’t straight forward to decode with transparent policies. It’s a complex architecture with multiple layers of controlled tricks to block access to websites. It’s designed in such a way that you won’t even notice if the website has been blocked. For example, if you land on a website that is blocked, you won’t see any warning or information regarding that. Instead, you will encounter forever loading and other messages like timeout, connection error, network problem, etc. This makes it very hard to know what happened and you can only guess what the actual issue is. Let’s take a look at different methodologies incorporated in the Great Firewall of China.
DNS Poisoning/Spoofing. Any website request initially goes to the DNS server to fetch the IP address of the website and accesses it on the responded address. If the response from the DNS is incorrect, you won’t be able to access the website. If the DNS caches are manipulated to contain wrong IP addresses, it’s called DNS poisoning. China does exactly that for blocking commonly known websites.
Blocking IP Access. This is a widely known and commonly used technique, also used by Great Firewall of China, to prevent access to several IP addresses. Even if you try to access the website by directly using the correct IP address of a website, if that IP is blocked by using this technique, you won’t be able to access it (especially in 2022).
URLs Analysis and Filtering. China’s firewall can block the entire website or selective webpages based on the requested URL scan for blocked keywords. As a popular example before china completely blocked Wikipedia in all languages, Wikipedia was accessible from China, but the Wikipedia article regarding internet censorship in China was not accessible due to the use of blocking “Internet censorship” keyword.
Deep Packet Inspection. Deep packet inspection (DPI) techniques are also deployed by China’s Great Firewall to extensively inspect incoming and outgoing unencrypted network traffic for packets, filtering and blocking data packets that contain sensitive information that is censored by China.
Resetting Connections. The Great Firewall of China also uses the trick to reset connections between two communicating devices/servers, as long as the transmitted data is qualified as sensitive data. This essentially means that after blocking the data packets, the firewall can also reset the client-server connection for a certain time period.
Blocking VPNs. What do you do when a website is blocked? You try to access it using an encrypted VPN. Well, the Great Firewall of China is continuously learning the evolving attributes of a VPN traffic to terminate known VPNs, as well as new VPNs.
Legal Corporate Censorship. As you might have guessed already, to orchestrate the level of censorship that is done by the Great Firewall of China, Chinese companies are also bounded by the law to not distribute sensitive information that is censored. And if they do so, knowingly or unknowingly, a heavy fine and punishment are imposed.
What This Means for Your Websites and Applications
If your business has a user base in China, the Great Firewall brings unique challenges. Here’s how it can impact your website’s performance:
- Slower Load Times: Websites hosted outside China may experience longer load times due to traffic restrictions, packet loss, or delays imposed by the Great Firewall.
- Inconsistent Content Availability: Certain keywords, topics, or content types may be flagged and filtered by Chinese regulators, affecting whether users can access some or all of your website.
- User Experience Issues: Real-time applications that rely on consistent data transfer may experience more frequent disruptions, leading to a choppy or incomplete user experience.
- Business Impact: For businesses that rely on regular connectivity with Chinese clients or partners, these interruptions can make it difficult to operate smoothly, impacting overall engagement and customer satisfaction.
In short, the Great Firewall doesn’t only restrict Chinese websites, it also affects the availability and performance of websites outside China that want to connect with Chinese users.
How to Get Around the Great Firewall of China: Approaches and Solutions
If your goal is to optimize your site’s performance in China, here are some effective strategies:
1. Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) with Local Nodes in China
One of the simplest ways to improve load times in China is by using a CDN with nodes located within China. By caching your website’s content on servers within the country, you minimize the need for data to cross the Great Firewall which reduces load times and ensuring more consistent performance.
However, CDNs with a presence in China must follow local regulations, so make sure your CDN provider can navigate these requirements to keep content accessible.
2. Host Key Content Locally in China
For businesses with large Chinese user bases, hosting some or all of your website on a local server in China can improve speed and accessibility. This requires an Internet Content Provider (ICP) license which involves following Chinese regulatory guidelines. While hosting locally can give you more control over performance, it may limit flexibility in content delivery.
3. Implement Layered Caching
Consider using layered caching solutions to store static content like images, scripts, and other frequently accessed assets closer to Chinese users. This approach reduces the need for frequent data transfers across the Great Firewall to help improve load times for static content.
4. Use Performance Monitoring Tools like Dotcom-Monitor
A performance monitoring tool gives you insight into how well your website performs within China which alerts you to any load times, uptime issues, or connectivity concerns. By identifying performance problems early, you can adjust and optimize your site to provide a better experience for users in China.
Each of these strategies has its own advantages, and a combination of solutions often works best for sites looking to consistently reach Chinese audiences.
Monitor Your Website Performance in China with Dotcom-Monitor
If you’re serious about reaching users in China, tracking your site’s performance from within the country is a must. Dotcom-Monitor offers a powerful solution for monitoring your website’s speed, uptime, and user experience from locations within China to help you stay ahead of any performance issues.
Dotcom-Monitor helps you:
- Track Real-Time Load Times and Uptime: Dotcom-Monitor has servers accessible in China, so you can see exactly how fast your website loads from within the country and detect any uptime issues.
- Identify Performance Problems on Key Pages: With insights from Chinese locations, you can pinpoint specific pages or features affected by the Great Firewall to ensure you’re providing the best possible experience.
- Receive Real-Time Alerts and In-Depth Reports: Dotcom-Monitor’s alerts and reports keep you informed of any issues as they arise so you can take immediate action to address them.
Monitoring website performance from within China is essential if you want to maintain a consistent, positive experience for users. Dotcom-Monitor gives you the insights you need to keep your site running smoothly and connect with your audience even with the challenges posed by the Great Firewall.
To sum it up, if you’re entering the Chinese market and have identified a substantial user base there, it’s critical that you continually monitor your website performance from within China and identify ongoing performance problems. Monitoring from outside the Great Firewall of China, from external locations, isn’t enough. Choose a monitoring solution with the capability of testing you website from multiple geolocations, including China. Dotcom-Monitor provides a number of free online network performance tools , including a Great Firewall Test to check the performance of your websites, applications, servers, and more, from behind the Great Firewall of China.
