back to article Communist party boss blames Kunming knife attack on VPNs

The Communist Party’s chief official in western China’s Xinjiang region has blamed online videos and virtual private networks (VPNs) for the knife attack at Kunming station last week that left 29 dead and dozens injured. Speaking during a meeting at the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing last week, Zhang Chunxian …

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  1. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    I no longer know...

    ... whether the British Government is copying the Chinese Government or vice versa...

    1. Psyx

      Re: I no longer know...

      I know it's fun to regale against our 'lack of rights' here, but comparing them in some way to China is frankly insulting to them and the shit they have to put up with that we take for granted. We don't have everything quite the way we want it here, but inferring that we are in any way as bad off as anyone in the second/third world isn't really cricket.

      1. Graham Marsden
        Boffin

        @Psyx - Re: I no longer know...

        No, it's not cricket, it's irony.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I no longer know...

        I agree with you 100%, posting as I do from behind the great firewall.

        Blogger, wordpress, youtube, twitter, facebook, blogspot, New York Times, Bloomberg, the Guardian all blocked.

        All 'legitimate' micro blogs and blogs are heavily monitored and anyone creating 'dis-harmony' is severely dealt with.

        Unsurprisingly my VPn has been very erratic recently.

        Anonymous coward for obvious reasons...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Access to this website has been BLOCKED ..

      @Graham Marsden: "I no longer know... whether the British Government is copying the Chinese Government or vice versa"...

      I wonder what mechanism are HMG using to protect me from the Cyber Pirates ..

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about a wall to keep Han out?

    That would solve the problem.

  3. dan1980

    In a way, he may well be correct.

    The main reason for the firewall in China is the same as the reason for the totalitarian control of all media in North Korea - to make people believe they have it good when they don't and to hide the real behaviour of the government.

    To control what the people think and believe.

    The reason these governments fear the free flow of information is that they know their power would erode.

    Not that the apparent cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians is in any way justified by any repression but if you push people far enough . . .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It has to happen sooner or later

      China wants to grow it's middle class to keep the economy propped up by driving domestic demand for products.

      The same well-off, well educated people they need to keep the country going don't take to well to being spoon-fed government BS and finding out they're being lied to.

  4. jake Silver badge

    Why, yes!

    Stifling information allows totalitarian regimes.

    Which, in turn, totally pisses "the common people" off.

    When "the common people" figure out how to communicate[1] ... Well, all I can say is that the Southern portion of North America is no longer subject to British control.

    As a side note, it's a poor mechanic who blames his tools.

    [1] A printing press, by any other name ...

  5. jjk
    Black Helicopters

    "... with no fear of monitoring ..."

    Except from the NSA, GCHQ, etc.

  6. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Thank God, we live in a simple world!

    - Violence is because of the internet videos (and DOOM)

    - Rapes and teen pregnancies happen because of the internet pr0n

    - Terrorism is because of the internet. period.

    - Floods are because of homosexual marriage

    - Earthquakes are because of uncovered cleavage

    - Blindness is because of... let's just leave it at that.

    We only need to fix a few simple things and our world will turn into a right paradise.

  7. Hollerith 1

    It couldn't be related to oppression

    The long-standing, barefaced and blatant racist oppression (social, economic, political) by the Han Chinese of the Uighurs could have NOTHING to do with the violent resistance of those peoples. Oh no.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    2009 riots in Xinjiang

    My memory of that, as I was living in Beijing at the time is curiously the opposite: the Han rioted in Xinjiang, attacking Uighurs, because there was a widespread rumour (on the internet!) that said the Uighurs were spreading disease to Han people with AIDS-infected syringes.

    And yes, even in educated Beijing, I met plenty of Han who seriously thought the Uighurs were out to get them.

    People in the West have little idea how fast and how crazy rumours can be *inside* the Chinese internet (which makes it all the more ridiculous to blame those events on outsiders).

  9. jerrydilon1

    Without VPN in China I'm lost

    I hope they are not serious about this. For most expats like me who live/travel to China often VPN is the only way to access the internet as is.

    They've close in on most VPN companies, I've tried hma, ipvanish, pia and others eventually they all got blocked in Guangzhou and Bejing areas, so they seem very set on declaring war on VPN in general. Im connected from vpnarea (http://vpnarea.com) been using it already few months.

    Blaming VPN for terrorism is like blaming kitchen gloves company for a thief who hid his fingerprints during robbery.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Should've blamed wheat

    Wheat would have made more sense. Or gazebos. Yes, its all the fault of gazebos.

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