China has almost 700 million internet users, which means that almost 1 in 4 people with internet access in the world are behind the Great Firewall. The “Golden Shield”, as the technology is called in China, blocks access to tens of thousands of websites deemed harmful to the Communist Party. Among the blocked sites are services that have become staples of online life in the West: Facebook, YouTube, Google Search, Twitter and Instagram.

According to the Washington Post, China is not only maintaining but also reinforcing the legal and technical foundations of the Great Firewall. But despite the limitation to the population’s online access, the internet is in fact thriving in China in many ways: it is the world’s leader in e-commerce, and has four of the top 10 internet companies in the world ranked by market capitalisation.

The Great Firewall has wider international implications: in April, the US government classified it as a barrier to trade, and Russia has reportedly shown interest in the Chinese technology for website filtering.