That's a pretty strict censorship that basically locks your digital infrastructure into your country.

Well, mimicking China's GFW is seemingly the objective of some governments. But they are also able to allow some light (text-based) ssh usage and still prevent proxying.

I guess that's where the slow down part comes in. I'd imagine you can slow SSH to a snails pace and it'll still work for basic CLI use

Something that is often a benefit from the perspective of these regimes, yes.