Censorship is definitely there. For example, last month, when we were in China for family issues, I couldn’t access Free Republic through my tablet, and my free VPN wouldn’t connect. But I could see anything on the phone with a US number.
Google doesn’t work in China, neither do other non-Baidu search engines that I’ve tried.
I even had issues connecting to MLB.com to get baseball scores.
We went to a vegetarian buffet, and saffron-robed Buddhist monks were there chowing down.
The churches have websites that advertise service times. Which is not to say that there are no restrictions on religion. There are. It just isn’t as draconian as is often presented in the US.
“BUT he was on occasion “allowed” to bring Japanese published items to read. But very, very rarely.”
My stepdaughter’s uncle said one time the Custom’s Officer took a copy of Shūkan Bunshun - he let the other magazines through (haha). He obviously? could read kanji and it sounded like there was an “arrangement” of sorts for some Chinese Customs officials and some more frequent travelers.