According to a report by Shanghaiist, Singapore Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao has been "blocked" and "rendered inaccessible" in China, alongside the Chinese version of Financial Times.

The restriction of access to the Singapore news site supposedly occurred on July 18, 2017.

But no reasons were cited for the ban.

Lianhe Zaobao is recognised as Singapore's biggest Chinese-language newspaper.

It has over the years been allowed to circulate inside China -- a rarity, as it is a Chinese-language paper not based in the country but frequently reports on China's affairs.

A large proportion of Lianhe Zaobao's daily readership is derived from China.

The more high-profile China-related stories that Lianhe Zaobao worked on these past few days include coverage on Liu Xiaobo's death on July 13.

On July 18, 2017, Weibo users began to complain that they could no longer access the paper's website.

This is not the first time that Lianhe Zaobao has run into the Great Firewall of China. It was previously temporarily blocked in 2009 for unknown reasons.

Interestingly, Shanghaiist also reported that Lianhe Zaobao's WeChat account has not been blocked.

However, the access to Lianhe Zaobao's Weibo account was not discussed.

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Chinese netizens complain, puzzled

A quick scan on Weibo showed that there indeed have been posts by Chinese netizens stating that the Lianhe Zaobao site was inaccessible.

Here are some screenshots of them:

Translation: Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao was recently blocked. Previously, only certain sensitive articles were blocked (usually Han Yong Hong's articles cannot be opened). High-level talks between the two countries is just over, and now what's left is this blank space!

Translation: An embracer of the reactionary Lianhe Zaobao and the Chinese Financial Times, a site that is controlled by Japan, are both blocked.

Translation: I wanted to take some time out to read Lianhe Zaobao today, but then I realised I can't log into the site. What's happening? Is this temporary or did the website published something reactionary again?

Translation: Lianhe Zaobao and the Chinese Financial Times were previously approved by the party. But now after someone passed away, it's now all blocked, and what's left is just that shitty local newspaper in China.

One of these posts received a comment stating that the restricted access to Lianhe Zaobao might have something to do with Sun Zhengcai, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, who has been appearing frequently in the news these days:

It is not clear whether Sun is associated with the news sites, but the 53 year-old provincial Communist party chief who is tipped to succeed President Xi Jinping was recently purged in a Chongqing corruption inquiry.

Netizens in China give it a try

Netizens in China who tried accessing Lianhe Zaobao reported to Mothership.sg they could not access the site.

A netizen in Chengdu, Sichuan province, could not open the site.

Another netizen in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, also could not view the site.

One other netizen in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, also encountered problems.

But meanwhile in Shanghai, here's what we got:

And as for what Shanghaiist said about Financial Times Chinese site being blocked in the same article, here's another screenshot result:

These screenshots and photos were all taken without any VPN (Virtual Private Network) service at work.

Shanghaiist has added a disclaimer at the end of the article stating that "it's also possible that FTChinese and Zaobao will be accessible again tomorrow as China continues to fine-tune its 'online sovereignty'."

The verdict for now is that Lianhe Zaobao is only intermittently accessible in China.

In China, it has been an ongoing phenomenon that foreign sites are not easily accessible from within the country.

But it is not clear whether such a phenomenon indicates a full ban by the Chinese authorities, or a matter of "poorly-configured DNS, slowly updated DNS, and poorly-trained Chinese ISP technicians".

And if any foreign site is blocked, an official reason for it usually remains unknown.

But one thing's for sure: Since Lianhe Zaobao serves a large audience in China and has also done well in China over the past two decades, according to Stanley Loh, Singapore's Ambassador to China, in 2015, this turn of events is likely to make them feel jittery if it becomes a prolonged issue.

Credits: Top image composite image

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