Censorship of foreign acts is common in China. When the Rolling Stones made their debut performance here in 2006, the Culture Ministry restricted the band from performing five songs, including “Beast of Burden,” “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Rough Justice.” And in 2008, Bjork stunned the Chinese censors by shouting out “Tibet! Tibet!” during her song “Declare Independence.” That outburst led to a dearth of A-list foreign acts for years here.

But in China, where the censors from the government’s Culture Ministry carefully vet every line of a song before determining whether a foreign act can play here, those two songs disappeared from the repertoire. In Beijing, Dylan sang “Love Sick” in the place of “Desolation Row,” and he ended his nearly two-hour set with the innocent-sounding “Forever Young.” There was no “Times They Are a-Changin’ ” in China. And definitely no “Chimes of Freedom.” This