The Great Fire Wall of China is about to get a little bit taller.

From the end of next month, overseas providers of virtual private networks (VPNs) will be blocked in China, state media has reported.

From March 31, all VPNs in China must be licensed by the government, Zhang Feng, chief engineer at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

"We want to regulate VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities,” Zhang told reporters last week.

“Any foreign companies that want to set up a cross-border operation for private use will need to set up a dedicated line for that purpose,” he added.

“They will be able to lease such a line or network legally from the telecommunications import and export bureau. This shouldn’t affect their normal operations much at all.”

In a nutshell, the news means that it will become even harder than it already is, which is pretty darn hard, for regular Chinese folk and foreigners alike to access online content and websites that have been censored by the Chinese government.

Last year Apple agreed to remove more than 60 VPNs from its China app store, meaning only those with an App Store account registered in a foreign country could use the services.

Now even those with a foreign account will only be able to access government sanctioned VPNs.

State-run communications companies China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom have all been told to make sure their users can’t access blocked content with VPNs.

How this will affect our Googling, Facebook stalking and Instagramming activities is yet to be seen.

A further crackdown to internet freedom is also likely to affect both Chinese and foreign businesses working out of China.

According to a recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce, US companies working in China said internet censorship was impeding their operations.

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Keywords: VPNs in China China VPNs