In fact they don't care that much if you are deemed reliable, like some state institutes, researchers, there's is a priviledged net CSTNET for those people, they don't block anything on that. They are far more lenient on English sites, presumably due to the requirement of high education level to read.

And there is a university net, it's slightly less blocked than public nets.

They've charged someone for selling VPN online, but charging users is effectively unprobable due to the sheer number, but since Chinese laws are generally vague, judges and prosecutors are easily influenced and arbitrary on party security cases, they can always pick couple guys off to make a statement or set an example, like Sabotaging Computer Systems.