How to Access Blocked Google in China

June 25, 2009

Google.com is really blocked in China. Here is my story how I discovered it's blocked, my personal understanding of the situation, and my solution how to still access Google.com in china.

When did Google get blocked in China?

Since yesterday I've been struggling accessing Google.com through Firefox. I thought Google blocked my IP for some reason. But it didn't make sense because my Google Chrome was still getting through to Google.com. I also tried to access Google.com.au and it worked.

Now, the truth is revealed. Apparently Google.com was blocked in China. I didn't know the reason yet, but I attempted to use Google.cn and searched for "China block google.com" results withing last 24 hours, and here are the first 3 results I got:

09.06.25【双语新闻】谷歌国际网站昨晚在中国一度被封_爱词霸沙龙-英语 ...

4 个帖子 - 3 个作者 - 新贴子： 10小时前

China frequently blocked Google.com before the company set up a local subsidiary and a website in China in 2005 on which it decided to filter results in ...
sl.iciba.com/viewthread-7-607069-1.shtml
Skype中文论坛:: View topic - China Blocks Google Search, Apps ...

3 个帖子 - 1 个作者 - 新贴子： 4小时前
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/censorship-20-china-blocks-google- ... 访问谷歌(Google.com)，但广州地区电信用户反映，Google.com和Gmail仍存在无法使用。 ...
www.skypebbs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12680&sid...
玩聚SR | 编辑Windows 的Host 文件， 64.233.189.18 mail.google.com ...

8小时前 - 突发：google.com众多产品无法从中国访问 · Censorship 2.0: China Blocks Google Search, Apps, Gmail, And More · google多项服务在中国不能访问 ...
sr.ju690.com/meme/item/32137

If you tried to open the results but see nothing, it's because China also blocked those sites.

My take on China blocking Google.com

It's no longer a surprise that China blocks some website, but Google.com??? In my mind I have no idea why would Google.com got blocked while Google.cn and other country specific Google are not blocked.

What I noticed is that Google.cn doesn't have any English, at all. But fortunately the results returned are from English websites so I could read it. So my another guess is that in the future China may block the whole English Internet communities and only allow censored Chinese sites. Or will China blocked the whole Internet and allow only sensored Chinese site? I think that will be very good fun because they won't know when some country want to get war against them, right?

Google is blocked in China and it affects only Internet surfer in China who use English. In other words, China is pissing off the tourist in its country. I don't want to discuss anything about politics here, but economically China is destroying itself.