I think that they are even more subtle in their ideas.
They know they can't control 100% over speech, nevermind information. They can have some control, say 60%. They are concerned with yielding that 60% effectively enough that the 40% doesn't matter. Maybe in the future they'll have 40%, they'll deal with that too.
The Google thing was very instructive. Control was far from 100% but newspapers and Chinese sites were highly controlled. Many foreign sources, for the more skeptically inclined, were blocked, but many weren't. They selectively let in more misquotes of Google employees making absurd sounding claims. As always, the truly motivated could get to whatever news sources they wanted.
The upshot is that they can control the story and public perception without preventing facts from penetrating.
They know they can't control 100% over speech, nevermind information. They can have some control, say 60%. They are concerned with yielding that 60% effectively enough that the 40% doesn't matter. Maybe in the future they'll have 40%, they'll deal with that too.
The Google thing was very instructive. Control was far from 100% but newspapers and Chinese sites were highly controlled. Many foreign sources, for the more skeptically inclined, were blocked, but many weren't. They selectively let in more misquotes of Google employees making absurd sounding claims. As always, the truly motivated could get to whatever news sources they wanted.
The upshot is that they can control the story and public perception without preventing facts from penetrating.