I reason it&#x27;s a preëmptive block so China won&#x27;t try to block the servers to prevent Chinese users pretending to be U.S. users and reading US news: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10384070" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10384070</a><p>This would be consistent with that hypothesis.