- China is building in Pakistan, an Internet censorship system that resembles its infamous Great Firewall
- According to reports, the two countries have been working for almost a year in this infrastructure, which can block most foreign websites
- This comes when Pakistan is also actively trying to regulate the use of VPN throughout the country.
China seeks to replicate its infamous Great Digital Firewall helping Pakistan to build a similar system by their own means.
According to the latest online intelligence report, Islamabad and Beijing have been working for almost a year on this project, which is scheduled to significantly boost censorship and surveillance levels in the country. All this occurs when Pakistan has intensified its efforts to regulate the use of the best VPN services.
Pakistan’s Great Digital Firewall
Although Russia’s tastes and Iran have increased their national Internet capabilities, China’s great digital firewall remains the most successful example of a sovereign internet infrastructure. This is exactly what Chinese companies are now helping Islamabad to build: Pakistan’s great digital firewall.
This system is expected to block most foreign websites, which increases current levels of censorship in the country. It is worth remembering that Pakistani cannot access all main social networking platforms without a virtual private network at the time of writing, with X blocked since February 2024.
While the Pakistan government said that this infrastructure “would only be used to protect two strategic data exchange points in the national network,” as reported by Intelligence Online, authorities may activate the Firewall when necessary.
However, accusations about Pakistan use Chinese censorship and surveillance technology are not new. Al Jazeera reported in November last year, in fact, on some secret evidence of China’s ‘Firewall’ tools for Monitor online traffic and regulate the use of popular applications.
Such a system “has the ability to block the VPN,” said an official of the Ministry of Defense, familiar with the new deployments, Al Jazeera at that time.
P@Sha sounds the alarm! 🚨 The Firewall has been hurriedly implemented is a great setback for the technological sector of Pakistan. Companies are struggling to survive in the midst of Internet interruptions and VPN problems. Read the official P@Sha statement at the National Firewall: Pic.twitter.com/jowehzjpyjAugust 16, 2024
The VPN repression of Pakistan has been a development issue for 2024 and in 2025.
After trying to reduce the use of VPN, interrupting the services directly, Internet surveillance networks first reported VPN restrictions seven days after X had been blocked. PTA shared plans to regulate the use of unregistered VPNs as a way to stop misuse in August.
The plan finally retired at the end of the year due to the lack of legal reasons to prohibit VPN, according to the Ministry of Law of Pakistan. In December a new category of licenses for VPN suppliers was presented as the last offer to regulate the use of Pakistan VPN.
Either early to predict what is at stake for VPN users in the country, experts have already raised some concerns about the consequences of a national firewall.
On the matter, the Association of Pakistan software houses (P@Sha) said last year: “The imposition of the Firewall has triggered a perfect storm of challenges, with prolonged disconnections on the Internet and an erratic performance of VPN that threatens a complete crisis of commercial operations.”
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