On the 60th anniversary of China Radio International (CRI), Wang Gennian, the station manager, revealed the station’s growth plan for the next ten years. He said CRI will establish more FM and multi-media channels in 60 cities around the world. It will grow to be a platform that carries hometown news for the Chinese people living in other countries, as well as an information center for the Chinese consulate and embassy in foreign countries and an interactive network with other Chinese language media.

Source: Xinhua, July 16, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-07/16/content_11718720

Statistics released by China Internet Network Information Center suggest that by the end of June 30, 2009, Chinese personal blogs and my space users had grown from 19.7 million to 182 million.

The study suggests that Internet users access information mainly through search engines and Internet news. The survey also suggests that 84 percent of the users feel the Internet is the most important information channel and 48 percent of users have more trust in the Internet than in television.

Source: Xinhua, July 16, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-07/16/content_11719076.htm

Epoch Times reported that, in an effort to justify the forced use of Internet filter software, China used faked evidence against Google and even shut down Google China for a few hours. On June 18, the host of the popular prime time show, “Focus Report,” on state-run CCTV demonstrated that a large number of pornography terms could be found in a Google search. On June 25, network traffic analysts found that a week before the CCTV program, some people had deliberately searched lots of pornography terms on Google. The daily pornography terms search rose 5950 percent, in a linear fashion as opposed to a smooth curve that would  occur in normal situations. Those searches came from Beijing. Netizens also found out that the student who appeared on the "Focus Report" program accusing Google China of linking to pornography information was actually an intern for CCTV’s “Focus Report” program.

As a result, Google was forced to stop the suggestion and translation features on Google China, which had given it a competitive advantage over some other search engines operating in China. Those features also made it easy for individuals inside mainland China at least to see links that the government had blocked. There is also a report that Google China agreed to install server filtering software (the so called server version of the "Green Dam" filtering software) on its servers.

Source:
[1] Epoch Times, June 29, 2009
http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/6/29/n2572846.htm
[2] Epoch Times, July 8, 2009
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/19317/