1. vpn/proxy to us
2. profit?

the only advantage is latency and being able to use services like the bbc iplayer(or whatever it is)

but really it does not matter much, so probably what you get cheapest is best.

Shine an IR laser modulated to carry a TOR exit node to a towerblock from Hong Kong to Shenzen and beyond? There's got to be clever ways to circumvent the "Great Firewall" besides VPN. Although a laser would be subject to signal degradation based on distance and weather conditions, it would be pretty hard to detect right off.

I've played with it for the last couple of days and currently is only a search on 'last 24 hours' that is being blocked (in fact all searches for recent time periods are being blocked for any search). It looks like the Chinese authorities are more interested in controlling changing information rather than existing information.
'Bitcoin' is still working as a general search

Chinese netizens that are interested in the internet outside of China, are already very good at climbing out the Great Firewall. Most of the Chinese netizens do not care about GFW, because they do not read English, so the vast majority of the sites that matter to them are inside the GFW.

Yes, this would be a great story...make it well publicized that China is once again violating basic human rights and restricting free speech by censoring bitcoin.  Imagine then what the story will be when/if any western country tries to do the thing. 

Eye can sea witch word I type rong because I have a spell chequer (since 1999 and beyonce)

Yeah, I've long thought about the better-mice principle coming out of having built a standard mousetrap (i.e. make a Great Firewall and the best thinkers will overcome it and still do their thing.)

Anyone out there know if whatever version of China's Ministry of Culture (I'm not familiar with the proper agency name) has had anything to say about bitcoins recently? 

There was a recent announcement about using virtual currencies to purchase tangible items - though the Chinese people tend to ignore any government announcement and just immediately take advantage of any obvious loop hole (ie just send someone cash for their virtual currency) - most people in China don't even pay tax becasue there are so many loopholes in the system. The irony is that if you don't piss off the politicians by doing something political, the Chinese are the economically freest people in the world (I know people in China who literally own a mountain, and they've never paid a penny of tax on their income).