With Astrill and several other free and paid-subscription virtual private networks (VPNs) that make leaping China’s Great Firewall possible now harder to use themselves after government interference “gummed” them up, the world wide web just shrank a notch for 600 million Chinese web surfers. Or did it? Do average Chinese care about the wider, Western presentation of the Internet? Will they accept so limited a tool while living at home? How does the latest tightening of China’s Internet policy relate to Beijing’s stated desire to use the media to “go out” and present a positive image of China to the world? — The Editors