The Chinese government took censorship quite seriously in the early part of last year, with a law which banned most content from foreign publishers. The authorities were even blocking large sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Residents were obviously trying ways to get round these country wide restrictions, one of which are VPNs, now the Chinese authorities have made using VPNs illegal. Obviously some people do require VPNs for work so any use of them must be approved by the government.

China does seem to be in the news a lot about the censorship of the internet, but its not the only country doing this. Egypt, Cuba, Russia and Vietnam actively terminate internet connections and censor a lot of it too.