Such is the hunger for information and debate on the Web that news providers and commentators find ways to circumvent restrictions on sensitive material. Companies such as Microsoft help the authorities block sensitive words, but bloggers and forum commentators quickly introduce slang terms to get around these walls.
Some use initials, others mix English and Chinese, still more add a space or exclamation mark in the middle of a sensitive word.
"When the government bans something, it just makes me want to know more about it," said Laoyang, another blogger.
There are many restrictions on online chat. Controversial blogs are shut down, and chatroom moderators kick out participants who post comments likely to antagonize the Chinese Communist Party.
But no restriction is entirely effective. Despite Google's censorship, a search for "Tiananmen Square" on its China-based search engine produces several articles and pictures of the 1989 protests on the first page of results. Part of the challenge for the authorities is volume. The number of Internet users in China has surged from 620,000 in 1997 to 110 million. It is estimated that there are between 5 million and 10 million blogs. Censors say they have had to change tactics.
"It is becoming more difficult to block and monitor Web traffic so we need to switch to guidance," said an official responsible for Internet surveillance. "Strict management didn't work. It is like trying to control a flood. Guiding is more effective than blocking."
Even with an estimated 30,000 Internet police, he said it was difficult to monitor bulletin boards.
"The technology hasn't reached a level that will allow us to control them. And we must also consider the trend of democratization, which cannot be stopped," he said.
"China is very big. If you want to control such a large country, mere politics is not enough. You must control minds. You need to win the battle for ideas," he said.
In this battle, Memoirs is a mere skirmish. Further clashes can be expected between censors and pirates, propaganda officials and bloggers, the government and the market.
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