It appears that the Chinese government doesn’t particularly like their people using VoIP services and has thus made the use of Skype and other voice over internet protocol client illegal in the country other than those which are offered by government run services.

According to an article over on Intomobile by Marin Perez and by way of PC Mag, Chinese newspaper The People’s Daily has stated that VoIP services other than those provided by China Mobile and China Unicom are illegal.

Apparently the decision was made by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology who have also set up a hot line to get reports from the public and is distribution circulars which state…”Currently, our ministry is working with relevant departments to focus on the crackdown on illegal VoIP [voice over internet protocol calls] and we are now appealing to the public for clues for illegal VoIP cases.”

A Skype spokeswoman has said, “Users in China currently can access Skype via TOM Online, our majority JV partner. TOM Online offers local versions of Skype for Windows, MAC as well as mobile platforms such as Symbian and Windows Mobile. More details can be found at skype.tom.com.”

Apparently the reason for outlawing Skype and other non-government run VoIP services, is because China is cracking down on dissidents that use the voice over internet protocol to communicate.