Ask HN: How to connect to a remote desktop securely while in China?

I am going to be traveling through China on business next month and I have heard lots of stories about how they will monitor the internet usage of business travelers and steal emails and other data from their computers.

To combat this, I am thinking about going to China with a clean computer and then connecting to a remote desktop from which I could log in to email and do all of my browsing.

My question is, would the Chinese government still be able monitor all of the data that I send to that remote desktop? Would they be able to intercept the IP and username/password for the remote desktop? How would I set up encryption so that they couldn't see what I was doing?

If anyone knows of any other good resources for protecting privacy while in China, please post them here.