Beijing’s Central Party School recently changed its principal, and upon inquiry by reporters from Epoch Times, it was found that the official website of the school cannot be accessed from overseas. Through various tests, it was discovered that several Chinese government ministries’ websites, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, cannot be accessed from abroad. What secrets are these blocked websites hiding?
On June 5th, official information indicated that Cai Qi has been appointed as the principal of the Central Party School. Epoch Times reporters attempted to view the website to update the information on “current leadership.” However, the webpage could not be accessed, showing the following screenshot:
However, two foreign media outlets separately mentioned in their reports that the school’s official website did not update the leadership information on the 5th, but did so the following day on the 6th.
Epoch Times reporters also found that searching “Party School leadership” on Google sometimes opens a single page of the Central Party School leadership information but not consistently.
Xiaojun, responsible for overseas firewall evasion technology at the Global Quitting CCP Center, informed Epoch Times after testing with similar results, saying, “The page returns a 403 server/security gateway actively refusing and displays ‘Tencent Cloud WAF.’ The request reached Tencent Cloud’s protection layer, not a browser error, not a DNS error, nor a simple connection failure or resolution failure. It should be interpreted as Tencent Cloud’s firewall (WAF) interception, indicating that the request has not been pass-through to the source station, therefore the source station status on the flowchart shows gray/unreachable. But when VPN is connected to China, it can be opened.”
Xiaojun stated that it can be reasonably concluded that these websites use Tencent Cloud’s firewall and enable “GeoIP geographical blocking,” which directly blocks overseas IP addresses and only allows domestic access.
It is intriguing that some foreign media outlets can timely see updates on the Central Party School’s official website, raising questions about the reason behind it.
Canadian senior commentator Sheng Xue analyzed for Epoch Times, stating that the ability of some foreign media to see updates on the official website does not necessarily mean that the CCP has specific whitelist privileges for certain foreign media. It may be due to their journalists stationed in mainland China accessing the internet within the country, allowing them unrestricted access to the Central Party School’s official website.
Interestingly, in September 2022, Xie Chuntao, Vice President of the Central Party School of the CPC, announced the establishment of the “Chinese Civilization and Chinese Path Research Center” and the “International Communication Research Center,” aiming to accelerate the construction of an external communication discourse system and enhance international discourse power. This marks the Central Party School, a deep-rooted base of the CCP’s internal propaganda, officially moving towards the forefront of external propaganda. While the school aims to tell the CCP’s “story” overseas, it now blocks access from abroad.
In response to this, Sheng Xue expressed that the so-called storytelling by the Central Party School is propaganda, spreading lies to the outside, a one-way, artificially packaged and translated brainwashing product output. The Central Party School’s website serves as a raw material repository containing the ideological dynamics of senior officials. The CCP wants you to see what they want you to see, rather than allowing foreign think tanks or observers to access the website to gather research materials.
She noted that the CCP fears that overseas China experts could decipher its policy trends or crises through subtle changes in the wording of articles on the Party School’s website or shifts in research topics. Therefore, they prefer to restrict international access to the websites to ensure internal information does not leak out.
Epoch Times reporters individually tested the official websites of the 26 departments of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Natural Resources, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, National Health Commission, Ministry of Veterans Affairs, Ministry of Emergency Management, People’s Bank of China, and National Audit Office.
Among them, the websites of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Natural Resources, and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development cannot be accessed normally from overseas.
The inability to access the website of the Ministry of Civil Affairs from abroad raises suspicions.
On January 16, 2024, the website of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the CCP released a list of appointments and dismissals issued by the State Council, appointing Hu Haifeng as the Deputy Minister of Civil Affairs. Epoch Times reporters were able to view the updates in the leadership section of the Ministry of Civil Affairs website at that time.
Furthermore, in the past, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the CCP typically released quarterly data on marriage, divorce, and cremation statistics within three months. However, this practice changed after the outbreak of the epidemic at the end of 2022. The fourth-quarter 2022 civil affairs statistics were not published until June 9, 2023, and funeral data was not disclosed, sparking questions about concealing the true number of deaths.
On April 16, 2024, Epoch Times reporters checked the “Statistical Data” section of the website of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the CCP, showing that the latest data was from the fourth quarter of 2023 without funeral data for all four quarters of the year. A similar situation was found on the websites of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, Hunan Provincial Civil Affairs Department, and Guangdong Provincial Civil Affairs Department, where the pages related to civil affairs data could not be accessed from overseas. Likewise, the relevant pages for civil affairs data in Zhejiang Province, Heilongjiang Province, and Hainan Province could not be opened overseas.
Regarding the reasons for this, Sheng Xue analyzed that these three departments – the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Natural Resources, and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development – are the gateways for the core crisis data of China’s society, economy, and geo-security. By blocking overseas access, they aim to completely conceal these core data that are destructive to the CCP’s rule.
For example, the Ministry of Civil Affairs not only erased funeral data but also monitors key indicators such as the plunging marriage rate, worsening aging population, and the number of people receiving low-income assistance. These data serve as indicators of the social bottom line in China. Continuous tracking and aggregation of these data by foreign media and organizations could directly expose the CCP’s lies of a prosperous era, revealing severe governance crises.
The Ministry of Natural Resources controls China’s geographic mapping, land usage, strategic mineral resources, and cross-border geopolitical charts. In the context of heightened international geopolitical tensions, the CCP chooses to close off overseas access to prevent extensive reverse deduction of China’s strategic geography and resource distribution through big data analysis.
The website of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development records information on real estate collapses and land finance crises. By cutting off overseas access to first-hand data, the CCP aims to prevent triggering more thorough panic-driven capital withdrawals.
Chinese affairs expert based in the United States, Chen Pokong, told Epoch Times that the CCP’s international reputation is poor, its diplomatic relations are ineffective, but it meticulously studies power struggles and how to maintain its existence. Just like WeChat, where one version is for overseas users and another for domestic users. Nowadays, the CCP fears overseas media, especially overseas self-media, from deciphering many political codes through the analysis of its websites, hence preferring to block them from access.
Chen Pokong believes that as the CCP’s political crisis intensifies, the abnormal situation of data non-disclosure by departments like the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the inability to access their websites will increase.
In February this year, a research study revealed that the CCP’s “reverse firewall” is taking shape: over 50% of the Chinese government websites are now inaccessible from overseas. Approximately 10% of the websites have implemented explicit server-side or DNS blocking (such as the Anhui Provincial Government); about 40% of access failures are due to “timeout,” reflecting a bottleneck at the infrastructure level and restrictions on cross-border traffic.
Regarding the reverse firewall, Xiaojun stated that some of the CCP’s propaganda departments only want overseas people to see certain information while restricting access to domestic viewers, and vice versa. The technical implementation is straightforward and crude without involving domain hijacking, pollution, etc. It simply uses a firewall to determine based on the visitor’s IP address whether they are from overseas; if so, access is denied.
In recent years, while the CCP claims to be open, it tightens passport control and strengthens network control. Now, even the websites of public departments are being blocked from overseas access.
Chen Pokong mentioned that the CCP’s practice of deceiving is a long-standing strategy, similar to the era of Mao Zedong when slogans were shouted about the people and the republic, but in reality, neither the republic nor the people existed, nor did China. In the present era, the more the CCP opposes reforms and revives the Cultural Revolution, the more it needs to use the guise of reform.
Sheng Xue expressed that the CCP’s ideal state of openness involves the inflow of capital, investment, technology, and equipment, but under no circumstances should information, truth, and data leave China. By now imposing a “reverse firewall” even on the websites of purely administrative and public service departments for overseas viewers, the CCP inadvertently affirms its internal governance crisis, indicating it is unable to face normal international scrutiny and media inquiries.