Sorry Moondog, but I'm not seeing anyone writting about "japanese war" or Communist China here?

I do believe this block is for political reason, and the exact reason being the "reinterpretation" of japanese constitution by Abe.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a5d09c1e-0...#axzz36QvXQNVH

This change of policy is very hawkish - and while he's not having popular support even at home for it, he'll apparently force it through. And China (and also South Korea, apparently) are heavily protesting against it.

So the blockage of a japanese app by China - while it might look like it has nothing to do with on their country politics - would fit in counter-measurements.

You know I'm not Anti-Chinese at all, but it just looks quite natural for me that an answer from Beijing towards such steps tooken by japan could be happening on multi-level base, including the intentional damaging of a popular communication tool. (And yes, I didn't know it was that popular in RoC)

My girlfriend and most of her friends in China made the switch to Line. Nearly the same as WC but faster and more features. The look and feel is nearly the same. But with the block, all are back on WC now.
I think that blocking Line is not just related to Japan. China doesn't want to be dependant on foreign IT products and, in my opinion, often will block popular products to allow a Chinese substitute to develop. Obviously, the other thing is also that they can control the Chinese product.

As a shareholder in Tencent I, and no doubt many 富二代，appreciate this decision to block Line. Too bad for them they recently plastered the shanghai subway with advertising

^

Hongkongers don't discriminate.

Maybe more on the lines that the PRC powers-to-be can cash in on the Chinese product in various ways.

There's a work-around to allow LINE to work on a wifi connection. I tested it and it seems to work; it involves changing the wifi connection's DNS address to point to google's public DNS.

So instead of the Chinese government you get the NSA to listen?

Yup, they'd be listening anyway even before changing the DNS address. Hope they haven't been shocked at what passes through haha.

Yeah, that was a pretty bold move on their part. Notice how Tencent deliberately refrains from waging wars in its competitors' strongholds. They're still living up to their pledge to spend $200 million/year marketing Wechat outside of China, but they're using most of this budget to lay claim to uncontested territories.

Ask AirFastTickets about this one

For what it's worth, I just flew into Shanghai from Seoul today and yesterday the Korean news was reporting that line would be blocked for approximately two days as part of the security around Xi's visit to Korea. Along with that several Korean social media sites would be temporarily blocked as well. Not real clear reason given, however.

Kind of weird.. I mean Chinese (PRC) and South Koreans relationship are at a very high level right now, while japan and the DPRK villains ( ) are also doing "business" recently..

It seems that alliances are shifting, and China-ROK might be against DPRK-japan in the future..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldki...eals-on-japan/

(Which makes me think that Abe is even more stupid than I thought, allying with DPRK is like the most stupid thing, and gives Seoul no other choice but to support Beijing and become their ally)

Whats next, Rodman, Abe and Kim Jong-Un holding a basket game in Tokyo?

As a user of both, Line is a far superior app to Wechat. Besides the sticker fun, Line offers its own camera app to customize photos and has public events throughout Taiwan, Japan, and other SE Asian countries.

Wechat is really for text, group chat and way too much online selling/spam where too many people have turned their 'Moment's feed into portable ebays.

No one I know in Taiwan uses Wechat, and few people I know in ****** China use Line - but most people I know in Taiwan, HK, SG, MY use Line and have fun with it.

Truth be told, you need a VPN on both your phone and laptop before departing for ***** China to have any reasonable semblance of normal online activity, besides keeping the government from constantly monitoring everything you do.

I cant take anyone serious who apparently wants to connect the Peoples Republic of China with a swearword.. seems a lot of china hate in your statement.. cant take that serious.. lots of ppl in HKG, SIN and even ROK use WeChat i know that for sure. At least an app where i can be sure the NSA and its "friends" or told to GTFO. I am sure they got easy access to LINE being iz korean/japanese. . And I say no thx to american fascist NSA..

**** = communist...since it was requested upthread to avoid political wording so I masked it.

The NSA, if they are monitoring your phone, don't need special access to the app - they can get what they need regardless, and this is the very same reason why Taiwanese companies recently canceled contracts with Huawei and why one should think twice before buying a Huawei product....which offers a direct line, likely built into the hardware, for the communist Chinese government to access, either individually or in the aggregate, data from customers.