From a recent interview with James Fellow from The Atlantic Monthly

http://mis-asia.com/cio_focus/leadership__and__management/chinese-internet-censorship-an-inside-look
"When you can't reach a site from a computer in China, you're never quite sure what's happened. Is the problem with your ISP? With the site itself? Or is the firewall? You never know for sure."

The implications of this are enormous. Uncertainty is a rare source of irrationality. It’s a blank slate for imagination to fill, stretch, and distort. The Chinese aren't going to give this up because it's such a central power. The next generation of warfare is going to be just as horrendous as all the previous ones. We're animals, always will be and always have been. I mean animals in the sense that no matter how much we try, how many strides we make in technology and social progress, we'll always be faced with jealousy, love, greed, pride, and all those other little irrational intricacies that push us forward as a species. 

So there will be war. But what kind of war? As nations have come to realize the mutual destruction in traditional warfare, either directly or indirectly from loss of public support and other intangibles. They will move more and more into the digital world, using digital attacks that target infrastructure and standard of living. China now has a much wider tool set to choose from. Attacks upon Chinese soil will undoubtedly incite a wave of nationalism and patriotism. With information in its current form, staging an attack would be quite easy. Indeed, it's discouraged to talk about the firewall in polite company.

Nonetheless, no one can say for certain what the present state of Chinese sentiment is towards the firewall. The Chinese are very much aware of the firewall. It's impossible not to, so betting on this reaction remains a risky gambit.