There was a slightly more in depth article on the same topic as the NPC was drawing to a close in late October, which I found to be more illuminating than this piece, but both contain the same basic observations.

The upshot of it is that the Chinese know we are using VPNs, but for the most part, they honestly don't care about us or their home grown FB addicts. Furthermore, their army of net nannies can easily cripple any VPN service that they decide to target, though some of these new VPNs that access 1000s of servers simultaneously are a bit of challenge for them.

In the past, I've advised people to steer clear of long term plans because you never know how long your favorite VPN will continue to evade the radar, but honestly, even as 2012 is drawing to a close, the larger VPN companies are still going strong (NPC was admittedly a HUGE hiccup, though), and are doing their best to stay in front of the curve.