Great Firewall rises: darkness descends as China tightens online censorship

Working out of a Beijing office full of video game designers from around the world, Chinese-born Pin Wang and his startup Substantial Games should be the face of the innovative, forward-looking China that the country's leaders say they want to build.

Pin and his team are attracting investors from across China while launching online games full of swords and sorcery that they hope will dazzle global eyeballs. But for several weeks, Pin's team has struggled with a decidedly down-to-earth problem that's hit countless companies nationwide: They're unable to access their email, shared documents and other online services blocked by China's internet censors.

"Something that should take 15 seconds takes three or five minutes, and it screws with the way you flow or you work," Pin said. "We don't have the resources to move because we're a startup. But we talk about it all the time."

Chinese controls on information have tightened and loosened over the years, but Pin and others are feeling what many say is China's most severe crackdown in decades on how people learn about the world around them, talk to each other and do business.

On the internet, in college classrooms and in corporate offices, the Communist Party has raised the virtual wall separating the most populous country from the rest of the globe. Experts say it reflects a distrust of outside influences that the party thinks could threaten its control on society.

Companies that have depended for years on virtual private networks, or VPNs, to get around Chinese online censors and access business tools have seen those channels squeezed or closed since the start of the year.