This issue happens annually with each annual report to Beijing. It gets more intense with the advent of each FIVE YEAR PLAN and occasionally goes ballistic when national events occur - such as the recent Chongqing incident. Even the venerable gokm occasionally disappears from domestic view - which means they're probably hosted off-shore.

In effect - China's firewalling - assuming human error isn't in there also - is politically seasonal and fairly predictable.

For reliable international internet use - your only choices are proxies or VPNs, of which web proxies, proxy servers can tend to be free and adware laden but are religiously blocked by an unusually and extraordinarily diligent group of watchdogs, or VPNs which tend to be more reliable but cost money.

As for me - I'm still trying to figure out why I'm paying for a 2mb ADSL service and getting at most 10%, but more typically less than 5% of that out of China Telecom.