Their crackdown has intensified on VPNs, internet connections that avoid the firewalls and on-line censorship in the state, during both principal political assemblies of the year in Beijing.

One supplier and virtual private network users said services were interrupted or blocked during a meeting of the chief political advisory body in China as well as the National People’s Congress.

Astrill, a popular paid VPN service provider, said in a brief statement: “Due to political assemblies in Beijing there is raised censorship, so accessibility to VPN could be limited at this time. Please be patient while we’re working to repair this.”

Users of other services, including ExpressVPN and Cloud Ark VPN, have also whined about slow downs or outages on mobile phones, especially in the speed of their internet connections.

Some mainland providers, including Xiaoyao, have reported the suspension of services.

Foreigners residing in China said their daily life and company has changed.

Some technology-savvy young people in China have also expressed discouragement.

They rely on the services to carry out tasks like viewing video streams on Youtube, posting pictures on Instagram, playing online games or assessing the Twitter upgrades on South Korean pop stars.

China has been championing the theory of “cyber sovereignty”, the notion that every nation is entitled to control its national web space.

Critics say the censorship restricts freedom of speech, but also damages the skill to innovate in the country.

“The artificial intelligence has been so developed that AlphaGo will beat the very best individual player, but we are still trying to find a functioning VPN service that permits US to see the livecast,” they wrote.