On a light note, misquote: "...Perhaps, despite own indignation, most Western Kingdomers are fairly happy with their free snoopingnet...".
Besides, I wonder if the Chinese are too afraid of being caught using the tunnels.
Asia accounts for four of the world’s top five VPN-using countries, although Indian netizens are more likely to hide their location than those in China, according to new research. Out of 28 per cent of global users who tunnel through the internet, only one fifth do so because they don’t want to be spotted by government …
On certain Indian and Philippines 3G mobile networks, you can access specific websites without an internet subscription. Using a VPN on some networks gets you full internet access without having to pay for a plan.
Aside from that, traffic management in Asia is generally a bitch and a good VPN can help combat that problem.
99% VPN traffic from India is work related. It's mostly the "Bangalore"s,"Gurgaon"s & "Pune"s of India connecting to the bay side. Corp intranet access, Voice calls over VoIP phones, IM traffic, email, directory shares etc all VPNing into the Mothership orgs in California. No political reasons.
Quoting documents from Freedom House as some sort of gospel is a highly misleading thing to do. Their 'Freedom on the Net' scale makes no mention of western countries', particularly the USA and UK, mass surveillance of the net. Despite the fact that 'surveillance' is one of the things that Freedom House uses to judge internet freedom.