[LorenPechtel]

Seconded. I've carried a laptop to China upwards of 20 times by now. The bag has been opened exactly once--by airport security as I was leaving, they wanted to run my assorted electronics through separately.

Only once has customs had the slightest look at our bags and that was when the airline left them behind and we had to pick them up later. I was wheeling out a cart with 4 checked bags, no carryons and that drew the interest of the customs guy. The entry stamp two days earlier also drew his interest. He started running the bags through his x-ray, at that point my wife caught up and explained what had happened (she's a native speaker, I figured it was easier to leave any discussion to her) and that was the end of it. Nothing was ever opened.

Even the day my wife set off a nuke alarm at customs produced no response. (She had set off a previous alarm also, which was resolved with a short discussion. They never checked what the actual radiation source was and the card from the lab that explained why she was hot was sitting at home in the pocket of the jacket she didn't wear.)

Now, if my employer was some big company I would be concerned with espionage but that's all. Since my employer doesn't do anything remotely of interest to the Chinese I don't worry about it. Besides, we stay with relatives, my laptop has never seen a Chinese hotel room.