I spent five weeks traveling around China on business earlier this year. Free Republic works so well throughout China that I regularly used it to confirm that I had internet service in any given location.
China has blocked anything to do with Google which is very hard to get used to. Any attempt to do a Google search leads to a spinning wheel, and Gmail is inaccessible. I used a VPN to access blocked websites, but from what I hear the Chinese government has recently blocked most of them.
Blocking VPN’s. Something Red China and Cone Hospital in Greensboro NC have in common. Annoying.