The fine is actually 200 yuan, but the salary, over 1 million yuan, which he received while working remotely has been deemed as "illegal income" and subject to confiscation.
Where I live (Sweden) it’s legal to use GitHub (with or without a VPN). But if I fail to report 138000 USD in earnings I’d still be in for a world of hurt: First the tax authority would take about 100000-200000 USD from me. Then I’d be prosecuted for tax fraud. Nobody would be upset or come to my defense.<p>Not saying I prefer the Chinese system, but it’s interesting that in this specific case it’s probably more lenient.<p>EDIT: But I guess this guy didn’t have the option to report the income and pay his taxes? In that case it’s definitely another dimension of repression…
Some context which may be relevant: many local governments in China are in heavy debt, and they need more income: police have been collecting more and more fines, causing some outrages [1]. There are reports that many civil servants are unpaid for months (in Tianjin [2] and other cities [3][4]), in addition to getting heavy wage cuts [3][5].<p>A penalty of over 1 million yuan (>145K USD) for <i>using</i> VPN is a new development: before this, only VPN service <i>sellers</i> were prosecuted.<p>[1]: Law-enforcement agencies have been imposing larger and more frequent fines for offenses: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-local-governments-are-so-cash-strapped-they-use-police-to-raise-revenue-30c4fcaf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-local-governments-are...</a> "China’s Police Are the New Earners for Cash-Strapped Governments"<p>[2]: <a href="https://eightify.app/summary/chess/tianjin-government-crisis-unpaid-salaries-and-impending-bankruptcy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://eightify.app/summary/chess/tianjin-government-crisis...</a> "The Tianjin government's financial crisis, with unpaid wages and high debt ratios, reflects a larger problem in China's declining land finance and unsaleable real estate market, raising concerns about the stability of other Chinese cities."<p>[3]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=242pUa9rXgg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=242pUa9rXgg</a> "Civil Servants go unpaid and Local Government Borrowed From Temples/Protests surge in China"<p>[4]: <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wages-09082023112323.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wages-09082023112323....</a> "Chinese local governments struggle to pay civil servants' wages"<p>[5]: The government is trimming a combination of bonuses, cash subsidies and base pay for many employees, according to interviews with 10 local civil servants: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-12/pay-cuts-in-finance-tech-threaten-xi-s-campaign-to-revive-china-economy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-12/pay-cuts-...</a> "Bankers’ 40% Pay Cuts Show the China Dream Fading in Its Richest Cities"
It's important to keep into perspective that China is a 1.4Bn people's country and highly decentralized (much to the chagrin of the pro-US). This happened under the "Chengde" administration. There might be many reasons for this: Chengde is over-zealous, The police has a particular issue with a particular individual, the central state wants some examples, the local state wants to show its toughness on VPN, the local state needs some tax money and is pillaging, etc..
I don't actually understand the Chinese rules on uncensored internet access.<p>When I travel to China with a mobile phone subscription that supports roaming, I get completely uncensored access to the internet. Surely this is according to Chinese rules.<p>Likewise all the expats and Chinese I have met all used whatever they wanted of US social media plus they had a shit ton of pirated(?) American TV shows and movies.<p>Perhap the policies are changing? I don't know but this particular case sounds like a very modest fine (200 yuan) for using a VPN and sizeable fine for not reporting (and being taxed on) a foreign income.
$138,000 USD<p>Also an Archive link because the site timed out for me,<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20231006045251/https://here.news/post/93c46bbd-ea0d-48e2-bba6-135e58887f81/chinese-netizen-fined-over-1-million-yua" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://web.archive.org/web/20231006045251/https://here.news/...</a>
China is not a country anyone should be doing business with, let alone visiting. The level of human rights abuses and the potential for extra judicial actions make it far too dangerous.