Technical Article => China => China

Recently lots of Chinese found they experienced problems while trying to access Wikipedia, the world's largest and most well-known free encyclopedia. It turns out that the notorious Chinese GFW(Great Firewall) is playing the critical role here. It blocks the Chinese version of Wikipedia.

The reason why the Chinese version of Wikipedia is blocked is said to be that Wikipedia has changed its default protocol from HTTP to HTTPS. This change made it difficult for the GFW to filter some sensitive information the Chinese government doesn't want their people to read.

Speaking at the Leadership Energy Summit Asia 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he would fly to China to lobby the Chinese government to unblock the site within two weeks. But he admitted that this time it would be very difficult to persuade the government officials. "Which means they're no longer able to filter out certain pages. So they have a choice of all of Wikipedia or none,...So it's a little bit tougher diplomacy than what I've had to do in the past." said Jimmy.

Ironically, just after Jimmy made the statement, Chinese government seemed realize that they only blocked the Chinese version of Wikipedia. So later they blocked all language versions of the site. This makes Chinese have no choice but to use tricks(VPNs) to bypass the GFW.

Wikipedia has been blocked by Chinese government a few times. The first time was happening in 2004. The subsequent blocks happened in 2004 and 2005. Later there were some blocks and unblocks going on and on.

Perhaps this result is not what Jimmy wants to see. Wikipedia is now completely blocked in China.