In 2026, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not only implemented new amendments to the cybersecurity law and prepared to formulate the cybercrime prevention law but also suddenly upgraded the crackdown on people’s “wall-climbing” behavior in April. Experts say this irrational decision reflects the CCP’s intensified internal and external crises.
“Wall-climbing” refers to using technical means to bypass internet censorship or blockage to access restricted websites. In communist China, this is an important way for people to access free information.
According to CCP state media, on April 8, the CCP Cyberspace Administration held a national cybersecurity legal work conference in Beijing to promote key internet legislation and expand foreign-related cybersecurity legal construction.
In recent days, several internal CCP documents have been leaked via overseas social media platforms, revealing new developments.
One notice from the Cyberspace Administration shows that on April 16, a seminar on the so-called “Internet Power” will be held in Beijing; while another document from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology indicates a specialized meeting on cracking down on cross-border data connections took place on April 7.
Additionally, a memorandum titled “Notice on Cooperating with Operators to Implement Special Governance of Network Security in the Whole Province” leaked from a network service provider in Jiangsu. The document reveals that relevant departments are mandating IDC (data center) service providers, through the operator system, to directly and comprehensively prohibit end-users’ overseas access.
On April 8, a document titled “Urgent Notice on Completely Blocking Overseas Traffic and Strictly Prohibiting Wall-Climbing Business” was circulated online by Shaanxi Telecom, announcing a complete ban on accessing addresses outside mainland China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) and strictly forbidding any wall-climbing services.
Since April, the CCP has intensified its crackdown on people’s wall-climbing activities. On April 5, a netizen posted on Chinese social media Weibo, saying: “A university classmate was invited to the police station for tea because of wall-climbing.”
According to reports, the individual received a verification code when logging into Teams and was later asked by the police to come in for questioning the next day, suspecting involvement in fraudulent software activity. Worried about future tracking of wall-climbing and transaction records, the individual feared that even VPN membership purchases could be scrutinized.
In March 2026, a technical solution with the number CN121691088A entered the public domain. Information from the CCP National Intellectual Property Administration shows that the patent was applied for by Fujian Zixun Information Technology Co., Ltd. in October 2025, involving the identification of computers with VPN functionalities, now in the substantial review stage.
Bill Shaw, CEO of a dynamic internet technology company dedicated to helping mainland Chinese people bypass internet restrictions, disclosed to Dajiyuan that he has observed various related information recently. Particularly, service providers are instructed to suspend accounts upon detecting overseas traffic issues, impacting domestic VPN services turned business and handled through domestic service providers. The choices for tools to climb the wall will diminish.
Despite the recent crackdown, Shaw believes that the CCP’s attempts to curb various wall-climbing and free information dissemination methods won’t significantly affect services operating overseas like “FreeGate,” a free VPN service.
Shaw pointed out that the CCP aims to prevent various wall-climbing activities or free information dissemination methods. However, individuals within the country who have turned VPN services into an industry are sure to find ways to adapt.
Recently, many netizens on the X platform reported that VPN services are no longer functioning.
Account “Yesterday”: “Xi Jinping’s moves seem to be leading China quickly towards North Korea.”
“Ziyousuiwo”: “There are too many people wall-climbing now, making it difficult for the CCP to control the situation. There are too many tower climbers. ‘You can eliminate one person, and then new ones will continue to rise. All authoritarian regimes, centralized regimes will perish due to financial collapse. However, this is a good thing, the CCP’s actions will rapidly deplete its finances, leading to quickening decline. Everyone in the CCP is now an accelerator, accelerating the collapse under the leadership of the Chief Accelerator.’
“Qing ying”: “Some birds are destined never to be caged, and every feather of theirs shines with the light of freedom!”
On April 6, multiple media outlets reported that Apple officially removed the decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) instant messaging application Bitchat, developed by Block CEO Jack Dorsey, from the Chinese App Store as requested by the CCP Cyberspace Administration. The TestFlight Beta test version of the application in China was also simultaneously suspended. Apple actually pulled Bitchat from the store on February 28, 2026.
Bitchat is a decentralized communication tool emphasizing privacy and resistance to censorship, previously used in protest activities in Iran, Nepal, Uganda, and other places to bypass internet blockades and facilitate organization communication, causing concern for the CCP.
Furthermore, on April 3, the CCP Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice claiming that Apple products running iOS 13.0 to 17.2.1 have critical vulnerabilities. Attackers could implant remote-controlled trojans into vulnerable terminal products through methods like SMS, email, or contaminated web pages, leading to the theft of sensitive user information. Users are advised to promptly fix the vulnerabilities by upgrading their system versions and installing security patches. However, this notice has sparked suspicion among netizens.
X account “Ziyousuiwo” posted on April 5, suggesting that it was highly likely that in recent days, Apple pushed an unauthorized system update called Apple Ai to some iPhones in mainland China, fixing the loophole quickly. Users who downloaded Apple Ai can permanently use it as long as they don’t update the system, prompting the CCP to push users to upgrade and remove Apple Ai.
The revised “Cybersecurity Law” enacted by the CCP since January 1, 2026, has significantly strengthened the monitoring of cross-border access activities. At the end of January, the CCP Ministry of Public Security released a draft of the “Cybercrime Prevention Law (Solicitation Draft),” intensifying the blockade of channels accessing overseas information.
With the comprehensive upgrade of the CCP’s preventive measures on “Overseas Relations,” personnel within the system are facing unprecedented social controls. A recent Dajiyuan reporter interview revealed that judicial system personnel commonly avoid meeting old overseas friends returning to China. According to informed officials, such interactions are now part of the reporting and political review systems, indicating China’s ongoing shift toward a “semi-closed” state of social control.
Regarding the sudden comprehensive upgrade of CCP’s internet controls, Chinese affairs expert Wang He believes it is closely related to the CCP’s deepening internal and external crisis perceptions.
He expressed that since the beginning of the year, from the US capturing Maduro to military strikes against Iran causing top officials to collectively disappear in a short period, in addition to the US leveraging a large number of “accomplices” in Venezuela and Iran, and the CIA repeatedly recruiting CCP officials and military personnel as insiders. Consequently, the CCP is highly nervous, prompting a large-scale crackdown domestically.
Wang analyzed that the CCP’s current actions focus on three main aspects: strict control on wall-climbing activities to access overseas websites, tightened passport controls making it more difficult for the public to travel abroad, and severe restrictions on contact between overseas Chinese returning to China and domestic individuals. These measures highlight the CCP’s harsh internal governance, creating widespread anxiety. “The CCP intentionally instills fear in everyone, deliberately raising the stakes to such an extreme level.”
He believes that the CCP’s primary goal is to prevent incidents like those in Venezuela and Iran from recurring, adopting a preventative rather than preparatory strategy. “Xi Jinping’s current actions against the military, including the military industry, stem from a realization of the significant gap in combat capabilities between China and the US. It is highly unlikely that the CCP will launch a military operation against Taiwan in 2027.”
In recent years, the CCP has been publicly advocating for “opening up to the outside world” while prioritizing security above economic work. Wang views the CCP’s so-called emphasis on security as a means to safeguard political power, particularly Xi Jinping’s rule, indicating selective openness without involving political system reform, now warped and purely formalized. As domestic situation deteriorates and external pressures mount, the CCP is reverting to practices reminiscent of the Mao era, forbidding wall-climbing, tightening passport controls, and imposing heavy surveillance on the populace, similar to past bans on listening to enemy radio stations.
“The CCP is sitting on a volcano, on the brink of collapse internally, so many of its actions are extreme and devoid of rationality,” Wang said. He added that politically, the CCP is increasingly turning left and becoming more extreme, eventually leading to heightened insecurity among various social strata and prolonged economic stagnation and decline in China.