The Great Firewall of China and Network Latency

The Great Firewall of China. Infamous. Cause of frustration for foreign businesses. Dividing the world’s largest economy from the rest of the world.

The Chinese Firewall, which came into existence in 1998, is the barrier that separates all internet traffic from Mainland China to the rest of the world. The firewall monitors all traffic traveling into China, and all traffic and searches within the country. In short, this is a nightmare for foreign businesses trying to reach the Chinese market.

The Firewall is a roadblock, which comes in two forms. Network latency and Censorship. What you can expect are high latency times, poor network performance, and censored traffic.

Here are a few things to know when working with The Great Firewall of China.

Network Latency Effects

The Great Firewall of China will hinder network performance, there is no questioning this evidence. As the Firewall is a barrier to entry, it is no doubt going to cause a roadblock. The first thing that is going to occur is the Firewall needs to scan all the data entering the country. The filter will determine whether there are any keywords which violate the Chinese censorship laws. The second, more troubling issue, is the traffic will have to pass through one of three points of entry into the country.

The Chinese Firewall has three entry points in Beijing, Shanghai, and in Guangzhou. By being routed through one of these three areas, the traffic can be monitored. Also, by only having three entry points to such a large population, you will deal with congestion and packet loss.

The last item that is going to be problematic to network latency is the Chinese internet infrastructure, which is relatively underdeveloped. So once traffic is through the Firewall, it is not going to travel at the highest speeds throughout the country. What all this means is that if you are sending traffic into Mainland China from outside the Firewall, you will experience high latency and poor network performance.

Location, Location, Location

This is where location becomes very important. If serious about delivering content into Mainland China, it will help to have a presence in Mainland China. A number of companies will suggest Hong Kong makes sense geographically as it is close, but it is not within the Chinese Firewall. This becomes important, page load times are very slow when sending traffic from outside the Firewall. Slow effect conversion rates negatively. Web users expect a page to load within 2 seconds, and this is greatly hindered if servers are not located inside the Chinese Firewall.

The good news is there are many global CDNs that have a network within Mainland China, as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a server network based in Beijing. This will provide internal access to the Chinese market, which will significantly improve latency times.

Censorship

Censorship is a huge issue with transmitting information into Mainland China. As the world further believes the internet is a mechanism for the free flow of information (net neutrality link), the Chinese Government is doing the exact opposite. Everything from keyword censoring to entire companies being excluded from entering the Chinese internet space. For example, Facebook and Google are not operating in China currently, as well as events such as Tiananmen Square are censored from search.

What this means is when providing websites to the Chinese internet viewing market, one will need to be updated as to the latest items being censored within the Firewall. Between poor network performance and extensive censorship, it is good practice to provide a stripped down version of websites within China. This will cut down on possible censorship issues, as well as help improve page load times and performance.

Getting Over the Great Firewall

Most Chinese know they are being censored to a certain extent, but not all realize how much is being censored. China does a great job of educating the Chinese of the rich Chinese history, but at times, there is a lack of knowledge about current global events. There is a subset of Chinese which heavily utilize Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass the censorship laws. This provides those who want to search the free internet, the ability to do so. This is consider using a “ladder” to get up and over the Great Firewall of China.

The Rules Are Ever Changing

The Chinese Firewall is an ever evolving mechanism for monitoring and censorship. Since 2013, it has become stricter with regards to its censorship. There are a number of tools you can use to keep updated with regards to the latest in censorship of keywords. One such tool is GreatFire. This will allow you to see the latest updates with regards to the Great Firewall.

The biggest hurdle with maintaining an online presence within Mainland China, as well as doing business within China, is the Great Firewall. A combination of few traffic entry points, high censorship, and poor infrastructure make it difficult to operate. Partnering with Global CDN’s and cloud providers with Mainland China access are the best solutions to the Chinese Firewall.

Article originally published on the Datapath.io Blog.