[est]

I am sorry but I don't see any reasonable facts or explanation of how GFW slows the Internet down. HK is fast because your ISP is fast, it has nothing to do with GFW. I can download from ThePirateBay with the speed of 37MB/s in Chinese CERNET, and I can watch Youtube HD/HQ videos in ChinaTeleCom's 1Mb ADSL smoothly in midnight when the Internet is not busy.

I am a native Chinese living in China. And the tool I am using to visit youtube does not require any 3rd-party servers, it hacks into GFW and establish connections to blocked sites directly. :)