When I first arrived in China over two years ago, I was somewhat irked by the fact that I was unable to get my daily dose of news from the BBC. Now after using hundreds of Proxies, and investing in a VPN -- What happens? You guessed it. It's unblocked -- kind of. It seems as though the firewall is still in place for Chinese language services on the website and for any links in Chinese.

'People in China are able to access English language stories on the BBC News website in full, after years of strict control by Beijing.

The Communist authorities often block news sites such as the BBC in a policy dubbed the "great firewall of China".

But BBC staff working in China now say they are able to access news stories that would have been blocked before.'

Now, the cynic in me questions the reasoning behind this. And bear with me here. Could it be that this website has become unblocked as part of a 'knee jerk' reaction to the fact that Media coverage of recent events has, at best, been 'questionable due in part, to the fact that foreign journalists have been denied access to these troubled areas? And that the authorities are trying to give a 'balanced' viewpoint to those that can read English? Or, is it another way to inflame people by saying: 'Look, this is what they're saying...'

Or are we seeing the start of the 'Opening Up' policy in the final countdown to the Olympics? If so, why have the BBC been rejected by the Chinese government as part of the foreign media organisations trip to Tibet?

Full article available here.