A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China’s “great firewall.” The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on August 18. The notice said Ma had used “unauthorised channels” to connect to international networks to work for a Turkish company. The police confiscated the 1.058m yuan ($145,092) Ma had earned as a software developer between September 2019 and November 2022, describing it as “illegal income,” as well as fining him 200 yuan ($27).
Charlie Smith (a pseudonym), the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website that tracks internet censorship in China, said: “Even if this decision is overturned in court, a message has been sent and damage has been done. Is doing business outside of China now subject to penalties?”
Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/420019
I’m often confused about China’s laws.
If doing business outside of China is now illegal doesn’t that rather undermine the basis of theur whole cheap manufacturing economy?
The whole purpose of extreme legalism in China is that everybody is breaking the law, so it can be enforced selectively.
I have been told that the CCP allows VPN usage and will even hand out VPNs to people who ask, as long as they are part of foreign corporations. This information isn’t particularly recent, and I can’t remember the details surrounding it…