Chinese Sulfur and Global Warming

There have been a number of recent news stories reporting that global warming pretty much stopped for the past decade, due to the cooling effect of increased sulfur output in China roughly cancelling, at least in the short term, the warming effect due to CO2. Assuming that the account is correct, I think it has an interesting implication, not for climate science but for the controversy around it.

I don't watch that controversy very carefully, but one part of it is the question of what is actually happening to global temperature, with some skeptics arguing that the upward trend is for one reason or another either fictional or exaggerated.  My question is whether, prior to this particular explanation surfacing, the other side had conceded that for some unknown reason temperatures were not rising as predicted, or whether they waited to admit that until they had an explanation. If the latter, then perhaps the wrong side is getting labeled "denialist."

Can readers who are involved with the controversy, on one side or the other,  point to evidence, claims and counterclaims about what was actually happening to global temperatures over the past decade?

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A commenter provides a link that leads to a BBC interview with Phil Jones, who was a central figure in some of the recent climate controversy. He makes it reasonably clear that the recent data, while not inconsistent with the long-run warming trend, did not actually support it, which is evidence of the honesty of his side of the argument. The interview was, on internal evidence, between January 29 and February 13 of 2010, which I believe puts it well before the sulfur explanation had come out.