China said that it would expand sales of overseas newspapers and magazines for the duration of the Olympic Games — but ordinary Chinese will still not be able to read all about it.

Foreign publications will be sold in Beijing at new kiosks in areas catering to athletes and international media covering the games, which begin on August 8.

About 30 newspapers and magazines from Britain, the US, France, Italy and other countries would be on sale, according to an official from the China National Publication Import and Export Corporation. He did not give details of which publications would be allowed into China.

Jao Guoying, president of the corporation, said that organisers were aiming for same-day delivery of the newspapers, none of which has permission to publish in China and must be flown in each day from Hong Kong. “Providing foreign newspapers and magazines during the Olympics is an international practice and also part of our commitment to the Games,” he said.

The move does not make the forbidden fruit of the international press any more accessible to the Chinese public. Only approved subscribers, almost all of which are foreign companies, can buy the publications through the state-run corporation.

They are hand-delivered in the early evening — and sometimes later, depending on the arrival of the flight from Hong Kong and the time needed to check the content — in blue plastic envelopes by messengers who arrive on bicycles.

Chinese censors often remove or paste shut pages of newspapers and magazines that contain stories or other content considered sensitive or unflattering to the communist authorities — including several pages of a recent National Geographic special edition devoted to China.

Anyone wanting to buy a foreign newspaper must go to an international hotel or to the Friendship Store, the approved state-run shop for foreigners in Beijing. Even then, articles deemed uncomplimentary or biased may have been blacked out or even ripped out of the newspaper.

Despite the proliferation of information on the internet, which is increasingly difficult to control and patrol, China remains anxious to protect its people from reading the often critical and highly informative articles published in foreign publications.

Speaking to The Times, Li Changchun, a member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee and the country's propaganda czar, gave qualified approval to Beijing's moves to open up to the foreign media. Using typical communist official jargon, he said: “Officials will implement regulations that ensure foreign journalists will be allowed freedom to report.”

He turned to Liu Qi, president of the Olympics organising committee, and said: “If you are dissatisfied, you can file your complaint directly to Liu Qi.” However, he gave no contact number for an official who is rarely, if ever, available to the foreign media in China's secretive system.