The Asianist

It's common knowledge that the "communist" Chinese government censors the Internet. Here is an example of how that censorship actually manifests itself (including screenshots).

Angry Chinese Blogger also reports the censorship factor as the reason why AOL divorced Lenovo (previously Legend, now the holder of IBM brand name for personal computers in the US):

According to Chief Executive Officer Parsons, it was AOL-Time Warner who pulled out of the partnership with Legend in 2001 after authorities in Beijing made a series of unreasonable demands on the company in regards its joint Internet venture with Legend; leading AOL-Time Warner executives to pull out of their partnership over ethical concerns, and the fear that acquiescence to Beijing’s demands would seriously damage the company’s standing with consumers in the US...

Top among the reasons cited by Chief Executive Parson, as being behind the ending of the partnership, was the insistence by Beijing that Government agencies be allow to intercept, modify and retain data being sent to and from the online subscribers; a move that would have enabled Chinese security forces to eavesdrop on anybody in China who used AOL’s software or servers to access the Internet, and to block any or all content as they saw fit.

As a strong believer in the power of Internet technology to diffuse, if not reduce, power of national governments to control information, I, like many others, believed that the Chinese government would be ineffective in preventing access to information on the Web. I must admit, however, that it has been surprisingly effective -- far more so than I and other observers expected.