Did the earthquake disable the Internet blockers?
I doubt FREE REPUBLIC is allowed in China, afterall.
Free Republic IS allowed in China - I’ve tried it before when visiting there. The Govt there probably doesn’t know FR exists. They focus on CNN and similar MSM.
English language websites don't get a lot of attention*. Something like 99.99% of Chinese can't function in the English language, although some do get lessons from Chinese teachers of English who can't function in English either. Given that English is taught mainly in Chinese - one textbook I saw had something like 80% Chinese characters, and 20% broken English sentences - it's not exactly surprising. Have you had high school Spanish? How many times have you looked up Spanish websites, let alone try to read the articles within? The Chinese get much lower-quality English language instruction.
* National Review, Weekly Standard and Free Republic are all available there. What you can't access are Chinese language websites based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places where the content can't be censored by the Chinese authorities. At the same time, note that much of this censorship doesn't matter. The average Chinese is more likely to believe the government than he is to believe other sources. This is kind of the reverse of the way many Americans feel about Uncle Sam's pronouncements. Once you've gone through the Chinese educational system, which stresses Chinese superiority, achievements and territorial conquests (presented as efforts to civilize the natives) to the exclusion of everything outside China, while simultaneously presenting overwrought and one-sided accounts of Chinese defeats by foreign countries, you're inclined to distrust the Western barbarians, however you might react to them on a personal level.
only the epicenter’s net has been blocked
the FR is allowed in China
i am in shenzhen, china, right now