China's internet censorship mechanism has long been viewed as centralized. However, a recent international research report reveals that Henan Province has deployed a provincial-level blocking system independent of the national "Great Firewall" (GFW), equipped with independent censorship and interception capabilities. The emergence of this "wall within a wall" signals a trend toward localized and fragmented information control in China, suggesting that censorship power may have been "decentralized" to the grassroots level.
The report, published on May 11th, was conducted by the GFW.Report team in collaboration with Stanford University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and other institutions. The research, based on ongoing monitoring since November 2023, found that non-state-level, locally operated content filtering devices have been deployed at major network exit nodes in Henan Province, capable of proactively blocking specific websites and resetting connections.
Over 4.2 million domain names blocked, affecting academic and government websites
The study indicates that Henan's "wall within a wall" blocks over 4.2 million domain names, five times more than the national firewall. These domains include numerous non-political websites related to academic, technical, and corporate topics, including some local universities and government websites. The report warns that this local filtering mechanism could lead to a more subtle and complex censorship environment for Chinese netizens.
Zhao Yuan, a network engineer in Hebei, revealed in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Monday (26th) that similar systems had been deployed in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hubei, and other regions as early as four years ago. He said, "Before, we could access overseas websites not blocked by the national firewall. Now, in Henan and Hubei, even VPNs don't work. We can't even connect to some foreign university websites. Censorship is getting stricter and stricter."
Zhao Yuan believes that local governments' "increased restrictions" may be due to implementing directives from higher authorities, but also reflect the increasing fragmentation of the national censorship mechanism: "The central government delegates power, and local governments take the blame. You may not notice it, but the restrictions are real."
Technical analysis shows that the blocking equipment deployed in Henan is independently set up by local telecom operators or Internet information agencies. The filtering rules are rough and often based on keywords such as "vpn", "proxy", "free", etc. Once triggered, the connection will be disconnected.
The research team also pointed out that the "wall within a wall" system has misjudgment phenomena and often mistakenly blocks websites that are not related to keywords, affecting multiple fields such as education, scientific research, and media.
Network engineer Zhang Jianan said that if local governments have censorship powers but lack legal regulations, it can easily lead to "excessive blocking." He told this station, "Officials would rather block content recklessly than take responsibility. So, the result is 'shutting down the entire world.'"
Beijing political observer Wei Sicong analyzed that in recent years, the CCP has emphasized "territorial management" and "digital stability maintenance," and local governments have responded to emergencies and "cross-border speculation." He told this station: "Local governments have proactively established local blockade systems, indicating that the top leadership is increasingly vigilant about the flow of information."
Analysis shows that the "central government delegates power, local governments take the blame" model is becoming increasingly apparent
Hao Baikui, a former journalist and digital governance researcher, told this station in an interview that this kind of localized censorship is a tactic of "delegating power to the central government technically while leaving the local governments with the blame politically." "This is a typical phenomenon of the censorship mechanism being decentralized, a governance model that 'delegates power to the central government technically while leaving the local governments with the blame politically.' In the long run, this will further fragment the online information environment across provinces."
Radio Free Asia checked online information and found that as early as December 2023, a university in Henan Province planned to purchase a "public opinion monitoring system" specifically for international students, students and dissidents, and launched an open bidding.
According to the website of Henan University of Science and Technology's Asset and Property Management Department, the university has initiated procurement of a public opinion monitoring service system for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, with a budget of 120,000 yuan. The system will provide 24/7 real-time monitoring, early warning analysis, and crisis response for public opinion information across the entire network, covering news websites, Weibo, TikTok, and other platforms, and supporting a daily data collection volume exceeding 10 million.
In response to this, our station called Mr. Wei, the procurement contact at Henan University of Science and Technology, on Monday. Another teacher who answered the phone told our station that they were using the old system: "We hadn't purchased it at the time, and now we're bidding for a new system. I'm currently using that system and I'm still using the old system."
The research has been accepted by the IEEE S&P 2025, a leading international cybersecurity conference, and has garnered attention from academia and human rights organizations. Stanford researchers stated that similar systems have only been discovered in Henan Province, but they do not rule out the possibility that other densely populated or politically sensitive provinces, such as Guangdong, Hubei, and Sichuan, will follow suit.
Zhengzhou students struggle to connect with overseas telecom staff, who say they don't know
A student surnamed Zhang from Zhengzhou University told this station that he was unable to access foreign academic websites while in Zhengzhou: "Some classmates can connect in Beijing and Shanghai, but we can't in Zhengzhou and can only rely on circumvention software."
China Mobile's Zhengzhou customer service department responded: "We don't know if you can't connect to foreign websites, and it's not our responsibility."
Mr. Wang, a retired Guizhou University teacher who declined to be named for personal safety reasons, believes that many Chinese departments never disclose directives to their superiors. "Without a communication mechanism, most people can only feel the pressure, but somehow, whether online or in academia, people can sense it. This is a drawback caused by decades of institutional flaws. Who can change it?"
As of press time, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Henan Provincial Cyberspace Administration have not yet responded to this. This station has sent interview requests to the relevant departments.
