Beijing has long sought to prevent deployment of virtual private networks for the purpose of eluding online surveillance and censorship. The government permits limited usage of VPNs by some parties. But even unauthorized persons, if they’re sufficiently savvy, persistent, and risk-tolerant, have been able to use VPNs to visit state-blocked sites while hiding the visits and the IP address of their computer.
Now it seems that the Chinese Communist Party is undertaking a new campaign to stop college students from relying on this censorship-evading software (Vision Times, June 22, 2026).
A military-linked Chinese technology company quietly removed a report promoting a system designed to monitor and identify VPN use on university networks after the document sparked heated backlash among netizens….
On June 16, Guoji Beisheng (Nanjing) Technology Development Co., Ltd. published a report titled “Cross-Border VPN Identification System: Product White Paper” on its WeChat account…. The company is a subsidiary controlled by the 55th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, one of China’s largest state-owned defense technology conglomerates. The article was later removed from the account.
According to the report, the company’s Cross-Border VPN Identification System was developed as a new-generation tool for detecting and countering internet circumvention activities.
The system was reportedly designed for deployment on university networks. By connecting to core network switches and mirroring campus internet traffic, it could monitor network activity and identify suspected VPN use in real time. The document claimed the system could provide alerts, collect evidence, and conduct retrospective analysis of network activity.
Meanwhile, telecom and cloud-service providers have announced “stricter controls on overseas internet traffic and unauthorized VPN services.” And Chinese universities say that they’re paying more attention to VPN usage on campus. Maybe some of them are already signing up for the Cross-Border VPN Identification System.
Also see:
South China Morning Post: “China tightens Great Firewall by declaring unauthorised VPN services illegal” (January 23, 2017)
