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I would imagine that they would have spoken up about it in that case.

Why would Chinese hacktivists want to attack a project which increases their ability to get past the GFW?

Hactivist by itself doesn't imply anti censorship. Just people who hack as a form of activism.

In china there are hacktivists that are against the government and hacktivists that support the government's agenda and who hack for patriotic purposes and to avenge perceived slights against china.

It's a well known phenomenon in china known as red hackers (or the Honker Union: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honker_Union )

And it's far more likely that they are behind this sort of thing.

People with the skills to be a member of that sort of group have no need for either of the two relatively obscure projects hosted on GitHub to circumvent the GFW.

I'd say it's far more likely to be hacktivists rather than the government.