我如何看待近期中共将全面打压VPN翻墙工具 On the CCP’s All-Out Crackdown on VPNs

程敏

几个月前我在一次逛知乎时，曾经看到一个关于VPN工具的讨论贴，评论区里一众反贼和粉红就“墙的合法性”这个问题展开了激烈而又小心翼翼的辩论，唯恐惊动了审核，其实在国内的社交平台上，对于这种荒谬又敏感的问题我一般都是敬而远之的，倒不光是觉得讨论这个问题很弱智，也不是因为担心辩论不过粉红，而是被知乎封了四次号以后，“操作性条件反射”已然深入我心，我就像巴甫洛夫的狗一样，一眼扫去就知道哪些话题是安全的可以畅谈无阻，哪些话题是提都不要提的。直到我看到一条评论“翻墙浏览不是最基础的互联网知识吗，如果现在还有人想浏览互联网但不会翻墙，那只能说明他无能”，我大为震惊，手指不由自主地留下了一条回复“会钻狗洞不应该是你优越感的来源，大门就在那里，你应该思考的是为什么你非得钻狗洞，而不是嘲讽别人钻不过去”，一分钟后，我的第五个知乎账号再次喜提七天封禁，而这已经是我和知乎审核员斗智斗勇多年后积累了大量的阴阳怪气话术后仍然获得的待遇。

想起这个事的主要原因是最近国内又出了一件大新闻，在国外的反贼圈里引起了轩然大波，根据多方信息来源，我党开始着手对互联网翻墙工具——也就是我们俗称的VPN全力剿灭，来自国内互联网运营商和工信部的多个文件，例如《陕西电信关于全面封禁海外流量及严禁翻墙业务的紧急通知》，《关于配合运营商全省网络安全专项治理工作的告知函》，以及即将在北京举行的所谓“网络强国”的研讨会，均显示中共将要在近期开展“VPN大清洗”行动，彻底封死国内普通人了解真实世界的最后一扇窗户，所以一众反贼纷纷痛心疾首，感叹中国将要彻底退回到朝鲜如今的状态，而中共的洗脑将会更无懈可击，其实我倒觉得完全没必要大惊小怪，因为从一开始，这种事的发生就是个早晚问题，而不是会不会发生的问题。

首先应该明确一点——中共制定的一切政策和手段，其核心目的永远不变，即维护自身统治的合法性和执政地位，从所谓的解放军，也就是中国特色党卫军纪律的第一条“听党指挥”，到小学教室里硕大红字贴着的“爱党爱国”，再到中国人从小耳濡目染早已形成条件反射的——各种强调“没有共产党就没有新中国”的红色歌曲和电影，，无不在表明这一点，虽然中共曾经在生死存亡之际选择了“改革开放”，与世界接轨，但这也不过是中共为了给自己“续命”不得不做的妥协，古人云“饱暖思淫欲”，经济发展起来，放开了对思想的限制，那么人就会活络起来，而当经济发展和中共的统治地位产生冲突，当个人利益和宏大叙事对立起，中共会选择哪边，这不是一目了然的吗？

因此，这次“VPN大清洗”不是皇上的心血来潮，而是我党统治下迟早会来的必然动作。习近平和毛泽东是类似的，他是坏但不是蠢，他很清楚：当经济增长这剂“统治合法性的续命药”日渐失效，当年轻人躺平、内卷、润学成为主流叙事，当房地产、地方债务、青年失业这些定时炸弹一颗接一颗作响，他们唯一能做的，就是把“墙”建的更高更牢靠。因为他们知道，一旦普通人能轻易看到外面真实的世界，宏大叙事就容易崩盘。毕竟老百姓学了英语，中共就无法将unacceptable翻译为“可以接受的”来随意糊弄普通人了。

而在未来的中国，真正有能力翻墙的人，早就已经用脚投票润出去了；留下来的人里，会翻墙的越来越少，要么就是再怎么翻墙也忠心不改的铁杆粉红，不会翻墙的又被洗得越来越彻底。而这正是中共理想中的最终国家状态——一个信息完全可控、思想高度统一的“数字朝鲜”。我并不喜欢唱衰中国，但现实摆在这里：只要中共还在一天，“维护统治地位”这一需求就凌驾于一切之上，所谓民生问题，领土问题，外交问题，这些全都是服务于这一最高需求的“边角料”。而VPN被封同样也是出于维护这一需求。只有当这个“党的利益凌驾于一切”的毒瘤制度被根本改变，只有当权力真正被关进笼子里，我们才有可能拥有一个大门敞开的互联网，而不是永远只能钻狗洞、并且还要被一起钻的粉红嘲笑钻得不够飘逸。

所以，不必为了VPN被封而痛心疾首，必然的结果，有什么好惊讶的呢，用老话来说——这才到哪啊？好日子还在后头呢！

A few months ago, while idly browsing Zhihu, I came across a discussion thread about VPN tools. In the comments, anti-regime dissidents and pro-regime nationalists were engaged in a fierce yet carefully hedged argument over the “legitimacy” of the Great Firewall, each side evidently terrified of attracting the censors’ attention. On Chinese social media, I usually steer well clear of absurd yet politically sensitive topics of this kind. That is not simply because I find the whole debate idiotic, nor because I worry about losing an argument to the Little Pinks. It is because, after having four Zhihu accounts banned, an operational form of conditioned reflex has sunk deep into my bones. I have become rather like one of Pavlov’s dogs: with a single glance, I know which topics are safe to discuss freely and which ought never to be mentioned at all.

Then I saw one comment that read: “Isn’t using a VPN to browse the internet the most basic piece of internet knowledge? If someone still wants to access the internet but doesn’t know how to get around the Firewall, that only proves they’re incompetent.” I was genuinely taken aback. My fingers moved of their own accord, leaving the reply: “Knowing how to crawl through a dog hole should not be a source of pride. The front gate is right there. What you ought to ask is why you are forced to crawl through a dog hole at all, rather than mock those who cannot squeeze through it.” One minute later, my fifth Zhihu account was rewarded with yet another seven-day suspension. That was the treatment I received even after years of sparring with Zhihu’s censors had furnished me with a considerable stockpile of sarcasm and innuendo.

The reason this episode came back to mind is that another major story has recently emerged inside China, causing an uproar among Chinese dissidents overseas. According to multiple sources, the Party has begun preparing a full-scale assault on internet circumvention tools — what we usually call VPNs. A number of documents originating from domestic internet operators and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, including Shaanxi Telecom’s Emergency Notice on the Comprehensive Blocking of Overseas Traffic and the Strict Prohibition of Circumvention Services, Notice on Co-operating with Province-wide Network Security Special Rectification by Telecom Operators, and the forthcoming seminar in Beijing on the so-called “cyber power”, all suggest that the CCP is preparing to launch a “great purge” of VPNs in the near future, sealing off the final window through which ordinary Chinese people can glimpse the real world.

Many dissidents have reacted with anguish, lamenting that China is about to regress fully into a condition resembling present-day North Korea, where the Party’s brainwashing will become even more airtight. I do not think there is any need for such astonishment. From the very beginning, this development was only ever a matter of time.

The first point that ought to be made clear is this: every policy and method adopted by the CCP has one unchanging core purpose — preserving the legitimacy of its own rule and its hold on power. From the first principle of discipline within the so-called People’s Liberation Army — in reality a Party army with Chinese characteristics — “obey the Party’s command”; to the huge red characters posted in primary school classrooms proclaiming “love the Party, love the country”; to the red songs and films drilled into Chinese people from childhood, all hammering home the message that “without the Communist Party, there would be no New China” — all of it points to the same truth.

The Party once chose “reform and opening up” at a moment of existential peril, seeking integration with the outside world. Yet this, too, was merely a compromise made in order to prolong its own life. There is an old Chinese saying: once people are well fed and warmly clothed, they begin to entertain wider desires. Economic development loosens the constraints on thought; once that happens, society becomes more active, more restless, more difficult to control. When economic development comes into conflict with the CCP’s grip on power, when individual interests collide with the grand narrative, which side will the Party choose? The answer could scarcely be more obvious.

For that reason, this latest “great purge” of VPNs is no sudden whim on the part of the emperor. It is an inevitable measure, one bound to arrive sooner or later under Party rule. Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong are similar in one respect: Xi is wicked, but he is not stupid. He understands perfectly well that as economic growth — that life-prolonging medicine for the regime’s legitimacy — loses its potency, and as “lying flat”, vicious internal competition, and dreams of emigration become the dominant outlook among the young, and as one ticking time bomb after another begins to detonate — the property crisis, local government debt, youth unemployment — the only thing the regime can do is build the Wall higher and make it stronger.

They know that once ordinary people can easily see the outside world as it really is, the grand narrative becomes liable to collapse. Once people learn English, for instance, the CCP can no longer casually mistranslate unacceptable as “acceptable” and expect the public to swallow it whole. In the China of the future, those who truly possess the ability to get around the Firewall will already have voted with their feet and left the country. Among those who remain, fewer and fewer will know how to circumvent it at all. Those who still can will either be a tiny minority or hardened loyalists whose devotion remains untouched however much they see. Those who cannot will be washed ever more thoroughly by propaganda.

And this is precisely the final condition the CCP desires: a “digital North Korea” in which information is entirely controllable and thought is highly uniform. I take no pleasure in talking China down, but the reality is plain enough. So long as the CCP remains in power, the imperative of preserving its rule will stand above everything else. Questions of livelihood, territory, diplomacy — all these are merely secondary materials, useful only insofar as they serve that supreme imperative. The blocking of VPNs follows exactly the same logic.

Only when this poisonous system — in which the Party’s interests are placed above everything else — is fundamentally changed, and only when power is truly locked inside a cage, will we have any hope of an open internet accessed through the front gate, instead of being forced forever to crawl through dog holes while being mocked by the regime’s loyalists for not crawling through them gracefully enough.

So there is no need to beat one’s breast over the blocking of VPNs. An inevitable outcome is hardly something to be shocked by. As the old saying goes: you haven’t seen anything yet. The “good days” are still to come.