Free speech in China, yeah right!

According to gossip floating around the web, YouTube has or will soon launch a Chinese version. This follows news from Down Under that the time wasting.... sorry video-sharing site has launched a local version for the Aussie market.
Currently all attempts to get into YouTube China have proven unsuccessful and instead I'm greeted with a "server not found" message.
This should not surprise anyone. The United States recent decision to honor the Dalai Lama has reportedly infuriated Chinese officials to the point that they have now placed bans on foreign search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Look.com. Maybe president Hu Jintao thinks the Dalai Lama will convince George W Bush to launch a pre-eminent strike on the communist country!
Anyway, Reporters without Borders, another on the China hit list I suspect, has published a report on the governments inner workings around web sites, which makes for very interesting reading.
We'll watch with interest to see how the launch of YouTube unfolds and whether, like its parent company, it will self-censor to keep those nasty government critics at bay.