Beijing-based Baidu is rushing to assess about 2.8 million files on the website, Baidu Wenku, that have been pointed to as suspected of being unlicensed, said Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo.

Dozens of Chinese authors have lashed out at Baidu, one of China’s biggest Internet operators, and have criticized the company and Mr. Li, one of China’s most prominent entrepreneurs, saying that the site facilitates copyright infringement.

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Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact, it is just the opposite.”

–Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang

If China wants to correct the “false impression” that it fears the Internet, ending its paranoid blocking of Web services would be a good place to start. This morning, Beijing extended the Great Firewall of China, restricting Internet access to Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail and Bing, among others. As confirmation of this, Herdict–a Harvard University site that monitors Internet accessibility–shows a spike in reports claiming that Twitter is inaccessible in China this morning.

The Wall Street Journal’s China Journal reports similarly.

The move–presumably part of the Chinese government’s efforts to censor media ahead of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre this Thursday–was more an inevitability than anything else. Like YouTube and blogging services WordPress and Blogger, Twitter provides Chinese citizens with an outlet for dissent and self-expression, things for which the Chinese government has a profound distaste.

So, it comes as little surprise that the repressive government in Beijing has blocked it. It did the same thing to YouTube back in March.

“It’s just part of life here,” said Beijing-based Twitterer Kaiser Kuo. “If anything surprises me, it’s that it took them so long.” 

I have a request for comment in to Twitter and will update if/when I hear back.