Jane Macartney, Beijing Correspondent for The Times, discovered that Google's decision to bow to Chinese censorship demands has made big news around the world - except in China.

"The main story on the Google.cn news site is about the resumption of direct flights between China and Taiwan. There is a lot about a visit by the Saudi King and more discussion of the toxic spill which poisoned a river in north-east China but no, there's no mention of this story about Google. I've been trying all day.

"Google is the most popular search engine in China, so one might have expected some publicity to accompany this launch but there is nothing running on it at all.

"In general, people are just not aware of it but the news will filter through by word of mouth. There is a word in China which translates as 'little roads, little news', that's how most people learn what is really going on, through gossip on the streets.

"If you run a google.com search for 'Falun Gong', then the words all come up in English but when you click on the site it just hangs for a minute and then says that the page is unavailable. There's no explanation, it merely states that it can not be displayed.

"People expect this however. It's completely normal. And the crucial point is that most Chinese people don't care. To 98 per cent of the population the idea of, say, independence for Tibet is abhorrent anyway. There is some discussion about democracy on some of the blogs, but people here know the limits and they don't tend to stray beyond them.

"The internet is hugely popular in China and the market is growing rapidly, but right from the very beginning in about 1994/95 the authorities were acutely aware of the possibility of 'subversive' information creeping in and put up very sophisticated firewalls.

"The market is enormous. Internet cafes are open 24 hours a day and they cost almost nothing to use. The Government is trying to clamp down on this by making everyone register and show ID before using the machines but it doesn't seem to be enforced with any great rigour.

"I was asking myself ten years ago whether China could continue to censor news and information as the internet grew... they have done and they're getting better at it."

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