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> The use of VPNs in China can provide individuals access to the international internet, but in China, it can be a potential legal risk. In 2017, the Chinese government declared all unauthorized VPN services to be illegal. An example of the use of this punishment is Vera Zhou, a student at the University of Washington, who, when visiting her Hui parents in Xinjiang, China, used a VPN to access her school homework. She was arrested and sent to a Xinjiang internment camp from October 2017 until March 2018, followed by house arrest after her release. She was not able to return to the US until September 2019.

Use of VPNs is... universal... among middle-to-upper-class Chinese. This is obviously not an example of legal risk associated with using a VPN. Rather, it's an example of a punishment coming down on someone who was targeted for other reasons.

An immediate implication is that, if you repealed all the laws against VPNs, nothing about anything would change.



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