From the Christian Science Monitor:

Official efforts to police cyberspace here comes amid a host of new measures and events that underscore a broad tightening of controls by the central government. A senior Chinese diplomat posted to Australia is seeking asylum in a hotly debated espionage case now underway in Sydney. Chen Yonglin, the diplomat, says the pressures and demands placed on him by authorities to monitor Chinese living abroad – especially members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement – had become “intolerable.”

See also “Defections spur China to passport clampdown” from the Times.