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China Bans Letter N From Internet as Xi Jinping Extends Grip on Power (theguardian.com)
Speaking of things the Chinese government has been censoring in the country, The Guardian reports: It is the 14th letter in the English alphabet and, in Scrabble, the springboard for more than 600 8-letter words. But for the Communist party of China it is also a subversive and intolerable character that was this week banished from the internet as Chinese censors battled to silence criticism of Xi Jinping's bid to set himself up as ruler for life. The contravening consonant was perhaps the most unusual victim of a crackdown targeting words, phrases and even solitary letters censors feared might be used to attack Beijing's controversial decision to abolish constitutional term limits for China's president. The Communist party has painted the move -- which experts say paves the way for Xi to become a dictator for life -- as an expression of overwhelming popular support for China's strongman leader. However, there has been widespread online push-back in China since it was announced on Sunday on the eve of an annual political congress in Beijing.
"Only the use of "n" as a standalone character."
Gives the N-word a complete new meaning.
de facto, pretty much, yes they had their own internet.
Foreign sites are very slow, if not impossible to access in a reliable manner. It doesn't help that pretty much every foreign website loads stuff from websites blocked by China's firewall - Google APIs, Social Media's like buttons, etc. In addition, regular users on e.g. China Telecom, are on a network that has very low bandwidth to outside China (this could be circumvented in the past by paying extra, e.g. for the China Telecom "VIP Package"). Finally, most Chinese grew up with their own Chinese internet services. Also, they are much, much faster being inside the Great Firewall. If you stick to Chinese websites only, your experience is often very good in terms of speed.