David Wolf

When China's authoritarian leaders are on top of their game, they can make awesome feats look breathlessly easy, lacing the coasts with bullet trains, throwing up vast airports seemingly overnight, plopping scores of power plants on the landscape like some giant farmer setting out rice shoots.

When they are off their game, it becomes apparent that managing a billion-plus people is not easy at all, even with near-absolute power.

Beijing's retreat on its latest Internet-censorship effort highlights the rise of China's increasingly tech-savvy, vocal public as a factor in the authoritarian government's decisions.

China gave in late Tuesday to complaints by Web users, manufacturers and foreign governments and postponed a plan to require producers to supply a government-endorsed filtering software known as Green Dam with every personal computer sold in China.

Days before a deadline abruptly imposed by China, computer makers are scrambling to comply with an order to supply Web-filtering software with PCs and worrying what it might do to their reputations.

Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Inc. and Taiwan's Acer Inc. -- the top three global producers -- are asking regulators for details of the order that takes effect July 1 to provide the "Green Dam Youth Escort" software with every laptop and desktop PC sold in China.