Access to Google International blocked in most parts of China

Anyone who has been following the news related to censorship efforts on the part of the Chinese government has come across the creation of the "Google.cn" domain, which is essentially a censored version of the Google search engine.  It was still possible, however, to access the international version of Google from within China without a lot of excess effort.  However, a story released by the Daily Times reveals that the traditional "Google.com" may be blocked in most parts of China.

Furthermore, the story reports that "Software such as Dynapass, Ultrasurf, Freegate and Garden Networks is normally used to gain access to news and information that is blocked by the firewall isolating China from the rest of the worldwide web. Bill Xia, the US-based exile who created Dynapass, said the jamming of these programs had reached “an unprecedented level” and he was convinced the authorities were deploying considerable resources to achieve it."

Despite all of the progress that China has made toward becoming a democratic nation, it is impossible for the people to take a hand in the governance of their country if they do not have access to accurate information about the world, and if they are not free to determine what information sources they use.

China is a country that currently faces many of the domestic crises that we have seen in the United States, such as obesity, and it is also battling with eyesight problems among its youth.  The fact that, according to the story, the government is devoting "considerable" resouces to the censorship of the Internet is somewhat alarming.