By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News, Beijing

Many Chinese use strictly regulated internet cafes

But what does the internet mean to people in China? BBC News spoke to a dissident, a film-maker and a journalist.

Liu Xiaobo has taken part in every political movement in China in the last 30 years including the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations and the 1979 democracy wall movement.

He has been to prison twice and is banned from publishing any articles inside China.

In China, where there's no freedom of speech, the role of the internet is much bigger than in Western countries which enjoy free speech.

Since the days of Mao Zedong, the authorities have created a very closed prison of information. There is only one voice. But with the appearance of the internet, cracks are appearing all over this prison.

The internet is the best gift god could send to China for the people of China to claim their rights.

In the 1990s, when I wrote an article and wanted to send it to the foreign media, I had to ride my bike across the city to ask foreign friends to fax it for me. I was lucky if I could send one article a month like that.

And I couldn't see anything I'd written because the Chinese media wouldn't publish it.

With the internet, I can e-mail my articles abroad as soon as they're finished. The internet has changed my life dramatically.

More and more people are using different software developed to bypass the authorities' control and to get access to the blocked websites.

Whatever method the government uses to block the internet, it's doomed to failure because of technology and because of people's desire for more and more information.

Li Xinde is a 43 year old journalist. He used to work for a state-controlled newspaper. But thanks to the internet, now he feels like a "real journalist".

He has gone freelance; criss-crossing China by train looking for injustice and digging up scandal.

In China, news organisations like papers and magazine are subject to strict censorship - the media is manipulated by the Party.

What does that mean? It means the media is the Party's mouthpiece. All reports have to comply with the Party line. This is why I quit the job of the official media.

My benchmark is the truth. A journalist once asked me whether I dared to report a case related to a provincial level leader. I said all I care about is if there is evidence. With concrete evidence, I am not afraid to report any case; even if it touches senio