"We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.” [source]

I don't know much about how internet works, but as long the chines gov has access to the chines internet providers servers, why do they need to hack gmail accounts? I assume that i don't understand how submitting/writing a message(from user to gmail servers) works, in order to be sent later to the other email address.

Who can tell me how submitting a message to a web form works?