China is finding the internet to be a double-edged sword. The world’s most aggressive monitor of its cyberspace recognises it to be both a helpful tool and a weapon of which to be wary.

Despite implementation of some of the most effective and intrusive censors on the planet, ruling Communist Party mandarins show every sign of floundering in their search for the most effective way to assert their control over the web.

This week those censorship efforts suffered an embarrassing setback when officials pulled back at the eleventh hour from a requirement that would have forced every computer manufactured in China for domestic use to come equipped with a software filter aimed at preventing access to pornography. The aim, officials said, was to protect the young.

The government has only said it will delay nationwide introduction of the Green Dam-Youth Escort software filter while it gathers more views. That is almost certainly a face-saving device to relegate Green Dam to the back burner. The flawed – and highly controversial software – may even be consigned to oblivion after it set off an uproar of anger at home and a chorus of complaints abroad.

But the episode offers valuable insights into Beijing’s multi-faceted approach to the internet.

Chinese experts have almost to a man attributed the climbdown to the extent of popular anger over compulsory software that blocked far more than images of the naked human form, but also Garfield the cartoon cat, film star Johnny Depp and any number of terms considered by the Party to be politically objectionable.

That is revealing. It is also why the internet has become of immense use to the authorities in a one-party state. It is not easy in a state with no free press or any freely managed opinion polls to gauge how people are feeling. And how people feel does in fact matter to a Party whose principle goal and challenge is to retain its grip on power. The internet offers the Party a window into the minds of its people. Monitoring of online chatrooms – a task that is believed to employ tens of thousands – is one of the most effective way for the leaders to take the pulse of the public mood.

They have shown themselves to be, in some cases at least, extraordinarily responsive. Green Dam itself is a perfect example of how the authorities have reacted to popular opinion. There are other cases. There was the man who died in police detention after playing a game of “eluding the cat” – a form of hide-and-seek with other inmates. He had hit his head when he ran into a wall, officers said. Such was the controversy that officials invited members of the public and online users to take part in an investigation. The man had been beaten to death by inmates, they established.

Some debate followed as to just how well qualified online commentators were to participate in such a probe. But the message was clear. The authorities are listening to debate on the Internet. And they care.

They are also determined to set limits on those discussions. Already a small army of volunteers has been drafted to participate in chatrooms and steer the talk in directions approved of by the government. Then, of course, Internet users must contend with the Great Firewall of China that blocks such politically sensitive terms as “Tibetan independence” or the banned “Falungong” spiritual sect.

Most internet users in China barely sense the power of the censor. They are busy instant messaging friends or playing online games. But more and more are resorting to the internet for news and information about both the world and their own country. Green Dam, with its loopholes that could allow the malicious to hack their way into a computer equipped with the filter, could conceivably have given the censors access to anyone online with such software.

The government plan has alerted the majority of Chinese with scant interest in politics to the extent of censorship – and how much farther it could reach. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and ideology czar and Politburo Standing Committee member Li Changchun will have to be a whole lot savvier when they introduce the next step to bolster control. As they certainly will.

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