China plans to allow foreign investment in VPN services as part of Beijing trial in latest opening up move
- Currently, China’s Great Firewall blocks access to 135 of the world’s top 1,000 websites, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
- The United States have previously demanded China to ‘completely open up its internet’
China’s effort to further up open up and attract foreign investment continued with the city of Beijing unveiling plans to allow overseas firms to invest in virtual private network services within a trial zone by the end of the year.
The relaxation of the restrictions, which was approved by the State Council in January, “is meant to attract foreign telecom operators to come and provide VPN services for foreign-invested companies in Beijing”, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
“The long-term implications are China is open for business, and continuing to embrace globalisation and the multipolar world order by further integrating itself into the global system,” said Aidan Yao, senior emerging Asia economist at AXA Investment Managers.
“These latest measures are also significant as they are targeting the services and consumption related industries, which are the engines of future growth. So overall, I’d see these measures, together with cutting import tariffs, opening up the capital account and onshore markets, a concerted move to further open China to the rest of the world.”
The new policy, part of a three-year plan by the Beijing Municipal Government to open up the service sector, came after the city’s economy slowed further to 6.3 per cent in the first half of 2019, while its fiscal revenue also dropped by 2.5 per cent to 317 billion yuan (US$45 billion).