"LetsVPN" with 20 million users announces exit from China! Mainland imposes strictest internet blockade in history: IDC direct disconnection, VPN usage becomes a crime of subverting state power

The Great Firewall (GFW) of China has undergone an epic evolution, and a giant in the circumvention industry has fallen. LetsVPN, which once prided itself on the slogan "Always Connected" and boasted 20 million users, announced on April 28 that its technical breakthrough efforts had failed. It has sadly exited the mainland Chinese market and initiated refund procedures. Behind this lies the strictest internet blockade in China's history, launched since April. Authorities are not only "cutting off" the internet at the infrastructure level but are also utilizing the AI system "Tiangou" to precisely sever proxy traffic, while characterizing VPNs as "tools for subverting state power." This increasingly high digital iron curtain is plunging countless cross-border e-commerce merchants, AI developers, and Web3 players into a severe panic over internet disconnection. (Previous coverage: Meituan quietly launches its new-generation large model "LongCat-2.0-Preview"! Setting a record for the largest computing power training in China, focusing on AI Agents) (Background: China blocks Meta's acquisition of Manus: $2 billion deal terminated, Singapore export model declared ineffective) For Chinese netizens who rely on overseas information to make a living, the last line of defense seems to be collapsing. On April 28, "LetsVPN," a highly well-known service in the Chinese circumvention community claiming over 20 million cumulative users, issued a heartbreaking announcement: it officially declared the termination of business operations for mainland China, closed mainland payment channels, and initiated a refund mechanism for users who paid after April 8. In the past, the most powerful selling point of LetsVPN was its brand slogan, "Always Connected." However, in the face of this sudden wave of internet blockades, this reputation was ultimately shattered. In the announcement, the official team described this move as a "difficult decision." They helplessly revealed that since the continuous escalation of internet blockades in mainland China in mid-April, the service had experienced widespread interruptions. The technical team had been attempting to adjust and fix the service almost "every hour" over the past 20 days, but ultimately confirmed that they could no longer effectively resolve the issues, admitting that in the face of the current state-level technical blockade, they were truly "powerless." The fall of LetsVPN is not an isolated case, but the tip of the iceberg of China's recent "nationwide internet blockade operation." According to intelligence gathered from multiple sources, since March 2026, this operation—led by the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, with the full participation of the three major telecommunications operators—has reached a level of intensity and technical sophistication far exceeding the past: - Infrastructure "pulling the plug": Authorities have required data centers and IDC service providers to self-inspect and block all cross-border traffic (including to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). Once abnormal IPs are detected, ports are physically disconnected, or servers are shut down. The gray area previously exploited by circumvention service providers, such as "renting official server rooms for transit," has been completely eradicated. - AI system "Tiangou" precision sniping: In the past, the firewall relied on protocol feature recognition, but now provinces have independently deployed monitoring systems (such as "Tiangou") that incorporate AI and behavioral recognition technology. This has rendered traditional obfuscation techniques completely ineffective. - Escalation of legal and political characterization: According to insiders, high-level officials have come to view VPNs as "tools for subverting state power," aiming to block cognitive infiltration. The revised Cybersecurity Law (effective in 2026) provides a basis for harsher penalties, significantly increasing the risk of fines and police summons for individuals using circumvention tools. The impact of this thunderous operation has long exceeded simple political dissidents, severely damaging China's massive cross-border e-commerce, foreign trade businesses, academic research, and AI developers and Web3 practitioners who are heavily dependent on GitHub and overseas exchanges. Currently, the consensus in the industry is that "100% stable circumvention tools" no longer exist. For enterprises with legitimate cross-border needs, authorities are forcing them to apply for official, fully monitored channels; meanwhile, individual users, besides applying for refunds from failed tools like LetsVPN, have no choice but to turn to higher-cost and higher-risk international eSIMs or attempt to diversify risks by using multiple mainstream international VPNs. As this digital iron curtain grows thicker, the decoupling of China from the global information network is entering a suffocating new phase.