The site appeared to have been unblocked in several major cities including the capital Beijing, where China will host the summer Olympic Games in August.<\/p>\n
News of the unblocking came on the same day that Hu Jia, one of China's most prominent dissidents, was jailed for three-and-a-half years for "subversion of state power" over six articles he published on the Internet.<\/p>\n
His Wikipedia entry was accessible, suggesting that Chinese authorities had unblocked the entire site, and not just sections as they often do.<\/p>\n
The International Olympic Committee has been pushing for China to open up the Internet ahead of the Games.<\/p>\n
The English version of the BBC, as well as Blogspot, a Google-owned blog site, have also been opened up recently.<\/p>\n
"I don't think it's a sign that suddenly they will loosen up what Chinese reporters are going to write, or what Chinese bloggers can post," said Rebecca MacKinnon, a media and Internet expert at the University of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
China tightly polices cyberspace, and Chinese web users see a stripped-down version of the Internet — minus sites belonging to rights groups and other others deemed by the country's communist rulers to be subversive.<\/p>\n
Some news sites are also kept off the Internet in China.<\/p>\n
The ministry of public security, which monitors the Internet, and the ministry of information industry were not available for comment.<\/p>\n
The opening up of Wikipedia appeared to apply mostly to the English-language version, although one Internet user in the city of Chengdu reported being able to access the Chinese version as well.<\/p>\n