GREG BAKER/AP

BEIJING – Famed Chinese philosopher Laozi once wrote that “a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”

Tell that to the passengers of Air China Flight 1894.

From the good people at Ministry of Toufu comes this bizarre but strangely familiar news story based on a video shot by a passenger aboard a flight last week from the southern coastal city of Shenzhen to Shanghai.

The video – which starts 28 seconds in – shows a throng of incensed passengers swarming a minibus moments before a man is dragged out of the vehicle and is set upon by the angry crowd.

A lone police officer is seen for a moment then, perhaps wisely deciding for his own sake to stay out the fray.

The passenger at the middle of all of this was attempting to fly last Thursday when he was told that despite the fact that he and his travel partner both held Air China platinum frequent flier cards (the equivalent of a Star Alliance Gold Card), there was simply no way to upgrade both of them to their desired business class seats.

The two passengers caused a great stink, arguing with ground crew, claiming they were acquainted with Air China President Cai Jianjiang and attempted to prevent the plane from departing by claiming they were too sick to fly.

At one point, the rest of the passengers who had already boarded the plane were forced to disembark and go through security checkpoints again. By then, heavy fog had moved in over Shenzhen airport and the flight was cancelled.

Passengers on the plane were understandably furious with the decision to first hold up the flight for the two malingers and then to cancel altogether. Demands for compensation were only interrupted by the recognition of the two wayward platinum cardholders on a bus.

Irate passengers soon set upon the bus and to the loud approval of the camera-wielding masses, pushed the cowed passenger to the ground, where he laid prostate as the crowd screamed obscenities and demands for an apology at him.

The man’s travel partner soon came out of the bus to defend him, but her pleas to leave him alone were shouted down by the passengers (translation courtesy of Ministry of Toufu):

01:26 The woman cried, “We have already apologized!”

01:29 One woman from the crowd: “You also need to compensate us too!”

01:39 Several voices to the man on the ground repeatedly: “Raise your head!”

01:44 One voice: “Playing dead?”

01:56 Several voices repeatedly: “Give the reason! What the hell is the reason? For us to disembark?”

02:18 “Stand up!”

02:30 One woman: “He should also compensate each one of them.”

Police officers later escorted the two away.

Recent Chinese aviation history is dotted with similar examples of Chinese tourists banding together against perceived poor service, airport delays, or simply a lack of communication. While most of these situations end peacefully resolved, some do end in violence, sparking the government to take action by threatening to punish airlines that don’t manage their passengers.

Two years ago, I was on a similarly fated flight the ones mentioned above. The plane, delayed from another destination, never arrived and the flight was eventually cancelled. While no formal announcement was made initially, the mood soon turned sour when a single passenger requesting news on the location of the plane was tersely told they didn’t know anything and that she should sit down and stop asking.

Moments later, a crowd of passengers soon formed around the rebuked passenger and the ground crew. When news suddenly broke that the plane was not going to arrive and the flight summarily cancelled, the proverbial powder keg exploded and the passengers, earlier frustrated but placid, united in one voice to demand compensation and an apology.

One woman’s impatient question had in the span of ten minutes led to a situation that quickly spun out of control. In a bid to keep the peace, the ground crew at the gate soon offered meal vouchers, rebooked tickets and even compensation miles to those dogged enough to keep their vigil at the gate.

By no means are these events limited to China. After all, the trials and tribulations of flying in America were deemed worthy enough to dedicate an entire television series about it. However, the frequency with which these events seem to occur in China suggests that something – whether it be the already reported massive expansion of the air network in China or the introduction of a passenger bill of rights – will have to be done.

Or perhaps more meal vouchers lie ahead in our not so distant future.

By Adrienne Mong and Eric Baculinao

BEIJING--Elsewhere in the country, the would-be Jasmine rallies seemed to have met the same fate as in Beijing. 

Our colleagues in Harbin said no one turned up at the appointed locations — although that may well have been due to the frigid conditions as the city lies in China’s far northeast.

There was a massive turnout in Shanghai, where at least seven men were detained.  It was not clear whether they were protesters or journalists, but people professing to be participants in the rally were quoted by several news outlets.

Meantime, the crackdown continued on dissidents.

Housing rights activist Ni Yulan said she could not follow the news as authorities have kept her Internet connection cut off since she was released from detention last year.  She revealed that U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr., visited her early last month to express concern over her situation.

“I heard about this “jasmine” thing from others, but I don’t think it is possible in China,” she told NBC News. 

“I don’t really pay much attention to this “jasmine” thing,” said Xu Zhiyong, a human rights lawyer.  “But still the authorities are restricting my movements.”

Others dismissed the “Jasmine rallies” as a joke.

“It was not a call for real revolution," said a veteran from the 1989 Tiananmen protests who did wish to be identified. "It was just to make fun."

Dissident writer and physicist Dr. Jiang Qisheng concurred, saying the whole affair “was really meant to make fun of authorities.”  Jiang spent 17 months in prison after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and signed the controversial Charter '08, an online petition calling for an end to one-party rule and greater civil and human rights. 

“I was not planning to join this protest, but, just the same, authorities are checking on me almost every day to control my activities,” he told NBC News.

But for the Chinese authorities this is no joke.

In addition to the gravity of the matter demonstrated in the overwhelming police presence in central Beijing today, Premier Wen Jiabao held an online question and answer session with Chinese netizens early this morning.

 It was his third ever such webchat and suggested the Chinese leadership had decided on a two-pronged approach to squelch the would-be protests: a sophisticated propaganda effort as well as a heavy-handed security clampdown.

Wen’s remarks — which focused on the nation’s economic growth alongside social justice and environmental protection and pledged the government would control soaring inflation and real estate prices — were broadcast repeatedly on state radio, television, and the Internet all day.

Some of those issues touched on by Wen are highly sensitive topics that weigh on many ordinary Chinese, especially rising food prices over the past year and sky-high property prices that are out of the reach of most urban residents.

It should be noted this is a sensitive time for the Chinese central government.  Next week sees the start of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).  Both are nominally elected government bodies that rubberstamp legislative and policy proposals.  With such a high-profile gathering of government officials, the capital is typically put on high security alert.

BEIJING -- Let us be clear from the start: this is not a blog post about a would-be revolution.

It’s about the demonstration of state power in a police state.

Today was the second Sunday in a row of an unspecified number of mass gatherings anonymously called across the country to protest against the Chinese government and some of its policies.

At 2 p.m. local time, ordinary people were urged “to take an afternoon stroll” to show solidarity. “As long as you are present, the authoritarian government will be shaking with fear,” says the call for “Jasmine Rallies” circulating online.

In Beijing, the location was a McDonald's in the busy shopping district of Wangfujing. But just hours before the scheduled hour, rumours surfaced that the designation had been changed to a KFC a few storefronts north of the McDonald's.

This may have been due to the overnight appearance on Friday of a construction site that surrounded the original site. Wooden walls barricading some mysterious edifice took up half of the street, severely limiting traffic.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Water cannon truck parks itself outside the KFC before the rally was due to begin at 2 p.m. local.

Today, we turned up in Wangfujing early and were immediately confronted with a massive police turnout.  Uniformed and plainclothes officers populated the main thoroughfare every few feet.  Inside the shops and malls were small groups of local community police volunteers with red armbands.

Rows of police vehicles — vans and sedans — were parked on side streets running off the main strip.  At least a handful of large buses — both the tourist kind and the type used by city transport — sat next to the vehicles or on Wangfujing.  We guessed they would serve as paddy wagons should things get out of hand.

It turns out the only thing that got out of hand was the security. 

This was the heaviest police presence we'd seen in the capital since the 2008 Summer Olympics, and even this seemed to rival the overtly public scale of what was on display three years ago. 

A shadowy detail
The designated KFC was on the first floor above ground, and there were large windows overlooking Wangfujing. We entered to eat lunch.

Tables alongside the window were occupied by plainclothes police, some carrying tourist camera bags, but all of them wearing some sort of earpiece — the telltale curly white wire running down their necks.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Plainclothes security sit inside the KFC overlooking Wangfujing. Spot the earpiece on the man to the left.

One table began filming us as we stood nearby, eating at a counter.

The same group filming us followed us out of the restaurant and onto the street. They even entered the same café we dropped into to buy some coffee. One man, in a bright red anorak, stood out; his constant companion was a small digital video camera.

By now, fellow journalists we recognized were appearing and being checked for IDs. The police were taking no chances. They even stopped a western couple with two small children.

Pairs of uniformed police with large German shepherds on muzzles patrolled the street.

Three water trucks pulled up outside of the KFC entrance.

In the meantime, the 3G signal on my Blackberry was acting up. I could no longer receive/send emails or tweet (using hashtag #CN227 for today's date). China Mobile, a major state-owned telecoms company, kept our handsets firmly on GMS, which permitted only phone calls and text messages. China Unicom, another state-owned telecoms company, only had SOS service.

Flooding the zone

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

More plainclothes police with earpieces sit inside a cafe.

Two o’clock came and went. 

The water trucks were joined by one more.  They began driving up and down the length of south Wangfujing, spraying the road and, more significantly, clearing it of pedestrians.

No one was allowed to loiter for long.  Police regularly pushed people along, sometimes politely, sometimes roughly, but always saying the same thing, “Move along, move along, don’t stop here, you’re interfering with traffic flow.”

As two o’clock got further away, however, the authorities became more aggressive.

A police tape went up on the street south of McDonald’s.  The authorities checked Chinese people for IDs now, too; they appeared to be singling out young men with backpacks—anyone who looked like a student, perhaps a likely participant in the Jasmine rally?

Journalists were prevented from filming. Anyone with a camera was suspect. Professional cameras were confiscated or their owners barred from entering. A handful of journalists were roughed up.

We saw a scrum and tried to see what was happening. Stephen Engle, an American reporter with Bloomberg TV, was being shoved and pushed by the police. When he fell to the ground and shouted for help, we tried to approach. We were immediately bundled away — dozens of police turned us around and pushed us down the street. Large men, in down jackets and tracksuit pants, individually began bumping into people, like pinballs, keeping them away. (Engle was reported to be still in police custody at the time of this posting but planning to go to the hospital tonight.) 

Bystanders confused
Even the street cleaners, in their neon-colored vests, got in on the act. One of them used his broom to sweep at the feet of my colleague, cameraman David Lom, to keep him off-balance when he tried to film and to drive him away.

Ordinary Chinese were bewildered. “What’s going on? Why can’t we walk here?” they asked.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Passersby take photos of the police dogs, normally an unusual sight in an ordinary shopping district like Wangfujing.

Some were more belligerent. One woman started shouting, “Why can’t I go down here? Why are you stopping me? Stop pushing.”

Others tried to work out the reasons for security by identifying the authorities. “These are ordinary police [Public Security police], not wujing (People’s Armed Police),” said one man. 

But he was wrong. The wujing were there, too.

What looked like a handful of squads of PAP troops marched in formation past the water trucks outside the KFC and McDonald’s.

Around three o’clock, the authorities had stopped traffic altogether on the southern end of Wangfujing, right where it abuts with Chang’An Road — where the People’s Liberation Army drove its tanks down toward Tiananmen Square in 1989 to crush the student protests.

Crowds were building at this end, behind police tape and police.

And then suddenly they were free to go.

What is remarkable is, at the end of the day, no recognizable protest took place in Wangfujing.

Click here for details on the security crackdown elsewhere in China.

SHANGHAI, China – “They look normal,” said my colleague, Bo Gu.

We were sitting on the fringes of a luncheon banquet, casting an eye over a group of 20 Chinese bachelors – of varying ages and thickness of hair – purportedly with a personal wealth of at least $1.4 million each.

Indeed the men did look normal, which is why we found it puzzling. They were taking part in a banquet organized by the Golden Bachelor Matchmakers, a company whose main revenue stream comes from finding female companions for wealthy men.

The company set up the first online dating web site designed specifically for multimillionaires. It’s worth clicking on even if you don’t read Chinese.

“These guys are worth a million U.S. dollars?” I asked again. They looked quite sociable, chatting animatedly amongst themselves and exchanging business cards. “And they’re having trouble meeting women?”

Looking for love in all the right places
We turned to look at the 20 hopeful women to be paired off with the men. Draped in jewels and wearing evening gowns, they sat demurely at their tables. None of them were chatting or eating.

It wasn’t until everyone had to introduce him or herself that the energy level picked up.  (Actually, most of the men talked while the women performed dances.)

It was also then that we realized that maybe the men did need a little help.

Han, a Shanghai male who works in the financial services, offered a brief bio. “I like swimming and other exercises,” he said. Then he launched into an emotional recitation of a poem by Su Dongpo from the Song Dynasty. The women looked bored but clapped politely when he was done.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Parents review photographs of prospective mates for their children at a weekend Shanghai marriage market.

The next millionaire seemed more promising. Wearing a dark suit, Xia Ning walked up to the stage and talked a little bit about himself. “I was born in 1977. I’m a Leo.  My ancestral home is in Sichuan.”

His self-deprecation nearly won over the audience. “I can’t dance or sing,” he said. “And I would make a terrible impression as a stand-up comic.”

But then he pulled out a PowerPoint presentation, with which he proceeded to lay out in great detail his interests, hopes, plans, and vision of the ideal partner and ideal family. There were bullet points galore. Complete with photos of fluffy white rabbits and rainbows.

And then there were men like Steven He, a good-looking 28-year-old with an impressive pedigree in addition to his impressive bank balance.

A graduate from the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing who dabbles in golf, enjoys movies, and speaks fluent English, he appeared perfectly capable of meeting women on his own.

When asked why he'd joined the Golden Bachelor club, he answered, “I wanted to meet women another way.”

Gold diggers
“People misunderstand the rich guys,” said Gong Haiyan, the CEO of Jiayuan, an online dating website that occasionally hosts special events for single millionaire men. “Everyone thinks they can find a girl, but it’s not actually easy for some of them…These men usually don’t want others to know that they are looking for girls. And they worry if they go out hunting girls they’d only find gold diggers.”

And gold diggers seem to be everywhere.  At least in China’s current pop culture, where reality TV dating shows like “If You Are the One” have attracted large numbers of viewers.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

At this Shanghai marriage market, a key trait featured on posters advertising potential husbands is whether they own a house or car.

The show seemed to capture some sort of mating zeitgeist when it first began airing and a female contestant, Ma Nuo, responded to an invitation by a poor young man to take a ride on his bicycle by saying, “I would rather cry in a BMW.”

Her put-down generated a huge outcry among viewers, social commentators, and government officials (who later sought to restrict the content of the show as part of ongoing efforts to legislate morality and social mores).

But it also seemed to reflect a pattern evident in the real world, where dating agencies, online dating sites, and even old-fashioned matchmakers have placed a priority on financial status above all else.

At a weekend marriage market in central Shanghai, where parents gather to find mates for their sons or daughters, the trait listed at the top of virtually every handwritten poster trumpeting the suitability of a single man is his income or assets (for example, whether he owned a house or car).

Love in a pragmatic climate
“Love is very tightly intertwined with pragmatism,” said Mina Hanbury-Tenison, a writer from New York who has lived in Shanghai for 13 years. “I often walk around the streets and I see...mothers walking with their daughters, and you can hear the conversations. ‘Oh, what does he have? What’s his 'tiao jian' (standard of living and income)? Does he have a house and does the house have a mortgage?’”

Hanbury-Tenison has a keen ear for this kind of dialogue. She's published a book, “Shanghai Girls Uncensored + Unsentimental: How to Marry Up and Stay There.” It is based on the war stories of Shanghai friends and, in particular, the extensive experience of one woman Hanbury-Tenison befriended soon after the American author landed in Shanghai. Tongue-in-cheek in tenor, it nevertheless offers some well-observed insight into how Chinese women in Shanghai climb up the socio-economic ladder by way of marriage.

“For some girls living in the big city, they're under a lot of pressure. They may only make $294 to $441 a month," said Gong. "Their wealth is their young age and beauty."

And with a skewed gender ratio – more men than women, as a result of the one-child policy in a society that still prizes sons over daughters – women of a marrying age are in high demand.  As such, they're in a position to be picky about their potential mate’s looks, status, but especially income and wealth.

Courtesy Mina Hanbury-Tenison

The cover of Mina Hanbury-Tenison's book,

The desire to marry into money may be a fairly universal phenomenon, but in China, it seems new. To a certain extent, that trend reflects the economic boom the country has enjoyed during the past two to three decades and the consequent embrace of materialism. “People have just gone crazy about money,” said Hanbury-Tenison.

On the other hand, a centuries-long tradition of matchmaking also means the Chinese are quite familiar with the concept of making a good match.

“In China, it's always been about arranged marriages. When people marry it’s a social (and) economic link,” observed Hanbury-Tenison.

In other words, marriage here is sometimes still about more than simply two people falling in love. It's about the merging of families and adding a certain patina to their social status as a result.

What at first glance looks like a materialistic attitude might also reflect a hard-hearted pragmatism, particularly in modern society, where studies show that often the single biggest source of conflict in relationships is money.

“Nobody just marries guys or girls, because they’re nice or like soul mates,” said Hanbury-Tenison. “But underneath all that language is the hard reality of life, which is: can you survive together at a level of lifestyle you want?”

Xu Xiaoyuan – a marketing executive from Sichuan currently looking for a boyfriend – put it just as succinctly. While she says she could marry someone without a lot of money or assets, the 23-year-old still believes, “[Having] financial means is a foundation for a good relationship.”

By NBC News' Adrienne Mong and Bo Gu

BEIJING -- We’ve written a lot about China’s Great Firewall, or Net Nanny. In the process, we’ve always tried to make the point about how straightforward it is for people here with wherewithal to circumvent the government’s Internet controls.

But what really impresses us is how easily people here get around not just by using VPNs (virtual private networks) but by using the Chinese language.

Take the would-be Jasmine Revolution. Last weekend, an anonymous circular made the rounds on various Chinese sites run outside of China, calling for an uprising fashioned after those in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere. The note called on people to show up at designated locations in 13 cities to protest corruption and censorship and to demand a more democratic government. Since then, there have been calls for regular attempts to gather every Sunday.

The Chinese authorities responded immediately. In addition to rounding up the usual suspects of dissidents, lawyers and other activists, the government cracked down on the Internet.

Searches for the word “jasmine” were blocked in online chat rooms and Chinese social networking sites like Sina.com’s Weibo. (Like major Western social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube, Twitter is not accessible inside China.)

One report noted that it might be tough for officials to completely ban the word “jasmine” from online use, apparently because it’s also the name of a Chinese folk song popular with the Communist Party leadership.

Regardless, plenty of folks have already come up with ingenious ways to get around the controls. New “codes” have been adopted to circumvent the Great Firewall and help spread the call for another round of protests.

Boxun.com, the website where the original call for China’s “jasmine revolution” was issued, just put up a new post encouraging netizens to use the phrase “two sessions” as a substitute for “jasmine.”  “Two sessions” here refers to the annual National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, held in Beijing every March.

In this vein, the phrase “to protest at a square” becomes “to hold two sessions at a square.”  This tactic would greatly embarrass the authorities if they tried to censor the phrase as they would need to delete anything related to their own Party events that will dominate China’s media in fewer than two weeks.

Another example of playing around with language is the word “protest.”  The act itself is now being represented by the phrase, “to take a stroll,” when people want to discuss online mass demonstrations without being censored.

Of course, as we write this, searches for the name of the U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr., is now a sensitive “term” on Chinese microblogs. See our earlier blog about Huntsman being spotted outside a McDonald's where some protests were coincidentally being held.

Wonder what great euphemism netizens might come up for him if that’s the case.

China launches sanitized state-run search engine
LinkedIn site disrupted in protest-wary China

He’s not well known in the U.S. yet, but the American ambassador to China is fast gaining notoriety here.

Jon Huntsman, Jr., was spotted last Sunday outside McDonald’s in the heavily-trafficked shopping district of Wangfujing in the capital.

His appearance wouldn’t have generated much interest (Huntsman is known here for his unorthodox style as America’s top representative in China) except for the little fact that a would-be revolution was under way exactly where the ambassador was standing.

In fact, Huntsman’s presence – which the U.S. embassy in Beijing says was part of a “family outing” and “purely coincidental” – has generated controversy on a number of fronts.

For one, the senior diplomat is due to leave his post in April after serving just eighteen months.  Although he has not publicly confirmed it, the Republican and ex-governor of Utah is widely believed to be exploring a run for the 2012 presidential race.  (This week saw the launch of a political action committee website for his campaign-in-waiting.)  That, obviously, would pit him against his current boss, President Barack Obama.

If that weren’t awkward enough, a video capturing Huntsman walking by the designated protest location has been circulating on the Internet, propelled by a website set up by Chinese nationalists.  The site M4.cn is a retooled version of Anti-CNN.com, which critiqued but mostly criticized Western reporting of the 2008 Tibet unrest.

(Thanks for the tip-off Danwei and Shanghaiist!)

Whether or not Huntsman was there by design or by accident, Adam Minter, an American writer in Shanghai, argues his appearance does raise the curious question whether it was for the benefit of the Chinese audience or the U.S. audience.

Update:

It looks like Huntsman's name has gone the way of "jasmine."  Searches for his name on Chinese microblogs are now being blocked.

Jeff Gross/NBAE via Getty Images

NBA player JaVale McGee dunks two basketballs at the 2011 Sprite Slam Dunk Contest in Los Angeles, CA.

BEIJING – You may not remember what type of shoes NBA rookie sensation Blake Griffin was wearing when he raised the trophy above his head after winning the slam dunk contest at this past weekend’s all-star festivities, but chances are you will remember what runner-up JaVale McGee had on.

For that, Chinese shoe brand Peak Sports must be positively ecstatic.

The Fujian based sports apparel company took advantage of the star-studded weekend to make its official U.S. debut and was blessed with a remarkable stroke of good fortune when JaVale McGee, a player with the Washington Wizards, made it all the way to the finals.

Between each dunk, McGee changed into a new pair of sneakers and each time the camera dutifully got in close and showed them off to the television audience back home. Even the annoyance of having to sit through the process of watching the lanky 7-footer lace his shoes up four times became buzz-worthy for Peak as NBA commentators, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Reggie Miller were left to fill dead air time by talking about what was on TV at the moment: the shoes.

It’s probably a sure bet that Xu Zhihua, CEO of PEAK Sport Products Co. Ltd will forgive the trio for calling his company’s shoes, “runner-up shoes,” or asking if they were “the Chinese version of PF Flyers.” After all, his product is not the first to ever be called out by the TNT team and for a shoe company that has been around since 1989 but has virtually no traction in the U.S. market, publicity is publicity.

That is of course, unless a future Hall-of-Fame coach calls your shoes “concrete boots” and holds them responsible for a player’s plantar fasciitis

But don’t underestimate Peak’s current position as newcomer to the saturated American market. The company has been aggressive in signing NBA players to sponsorship deals, counting fifteen current athletes on its roster including players like Jason Kidd, Jason Richardson, Shane Battier, Dorrell Wright and Kevin Love.

Kevin Love, in fairness and partial rebuttal to coach Phil Jackson, was wearing Peaks when he scored 30 points and grabbed 30 rebounds in a game earlier this season.

At first glance, it would be easy to look at Peak’s entrance into the market as a potential long-term threat to major players like Nike, who sponsors over 100 current NBA players, brings in $1.7 billion yearly in basketball related revenue and owns a dominant 86% share of the U.S. basketball footwear market.

However, it would seem that Peak’s gambit into the American market is in fact a challenge to fellow Chinese competitor, Li Ning, who over the last few years has looked the part as China’s dominant sports apparel company. Though still the leading sportswear maker in China, Li Ning suffered through poor fourth quarter earnings, sparking a 15% drop in share price even as a bevy of local mainland competitors like Peak and Anta announced healthy profits.

Peak Sports may make a lot of noise about breaking into the U.S. market, but the numbers betray its true loyalty to China’s mass market. Credit Suisse has suggested that as much as 74% of Peak’s revenue came from the booming mainland and a rapidly urbanizing population.

It is possible indeed that Peak plans to do battle with Li Ning abroad in the hopes of one day eking out standing in more developed markets like the United States, but it would seem in the short-term, Peak’s aggressive play for the hearts and minds of NBA players is effectively helping the company primarily chip away at Li Ning’s market dominance back home.

BEIJING -- It was, as one China observer called it, the revolution that wasn't.

On Saturday, websites run by overseas Chinese began circulating a mysterious call for a Jasmine Revolution, apparently taking the lead from the wave of mass demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa.  The Chinese campaign urged people to gather on Sunday afternoon in thirteen cities across the country, including Beijing and Shanghai, whereupon participants would shout:

"We want to eat.  We want to work.  We want houses.  We want fairness.  We want justice.  Protect private property. Maintain independent justice.  Start political reform.  Finish one party rule. Finish media censorship.  Freedom of news.  Long live freedom.  Long live democracy."

The hashtag #CN220, named after Sunday’s date, also began making an appearance on Twitter.

The would-be Jasmine Revolution

On Sunday, large crowds of people could be seen at the designated Beijing location -- a popular and heavily-congested shopping thoroughfare called Wangfujing, only blocks away from the site of Beijing’s last convulsion, the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square -- but it was hard to tell how many were protesters.  Many were clearly journalists, carrying cameras and the like.  And this being China, where it doesn't take much to attract a crowd, onlookers or passersby stopped to gawk, thinking there might be a celebrity in attendance.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

A man is arrested by police after calls on social networks for a "Jasmine Revolution" protest in front of the Peace Cinema in downtown Shanghai on Sunday.

But the biggest indicator something was amiss were the ranks of uniformed and plainclothes Chinese police.  Some scuffling and pushing ensued, and at least one man carrying jasmine flowers was reported to have been taken away.  However, it didn't take long for everything to return to normal outside the McDonald’s restaurant.

Journalists in Shanghai reported similar scenes in their own city whilst no notable gatherings could be confirmed in the rest of the locations.

It would seem, however, the real action had been taking place offline.

A crackdown on activists was already in force across several cities by Sunday.  In Beijing, for example, dissidents confirmed they have been under surveillance or house arrest.  When we tried to reach one veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he sent a text message saying, "Not convenient" to speak.  And one of the authors of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democratic reforms and greater human rights (its most famous signatory is Liu Xiaobo, last year’s Nobel Peace Prizewinner), said he was instructed by Chinese police not to leave his home.

Senior leaders were busy all weekend, exhorting for tighter social controls.  On Saturday, President Hu Jintao called for stricter oversight of the "virtual society."  This was echoed at another meeting of government leaders on Sunday, in which provincial and ministerial-level government officials were urged to step up “social management.”

The virtual controls were also in place.  A mass text messaging service on China Mobile was not available in Beijing on Sunday, according to one report.  And all day Sunday, users of Weibo, China’s biggest microblog, complained of hiccups, and searches on Weibo and elsewhere online for the word "jasmine" were blocked or did not go through.

Eugene Hoshiko / AP

Police officers urge people to leave as they gather in front of a cinema that was a planned protest site in Shanghai on Sunday.

The Great Firewall in action

Heavy-handed it may all be given that no one seemed to heed the call for action, but these measures are all part and parcel of Beijing's predictable handling, too, of the coverage of tumult in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and elsewhere in the region.  

Thus far, the Chinese government has been adept, wily, fast, and far tech savvier than their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts appear to have been when it comes to controlling the information flow on the Internet.  As writer Evgeny Morozov put it, protesters in Egypt "were blessed with a government that didn't know a tweet from a poke."

China, on the other hand, is believed to have the most sophisticated and wide-ranging Internet filtering system known as the Great Firewall. 

Not coincidentally, only days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a new plan to finance programs to help Internet users around the world, a rare interview with the father of China’s Great Firewall was published in a state-run Chinese newspaper. 

Although Fang Binxing refused to divulge how the firewall works, there were notable tidbits – including the revelation that he uses no fewer than six VPNs (virtual private networks), “but only to test which side wins.”

With additional reporting from Eric Baculinao and Bo Gu

AP

Chinese activist lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home since being released from prison five months ago.

BEIJING – Chen Guangcheng may be blind, but he has seen first-hand the draconian steps security agents in China will take to thwart suspected challenges to the state.

Now he wants you to see as well.

The 39-year-old self-taught lawyer and social activist has become an international cause célèbre as of late due to the news coverage of foreign journalists’ recent attempts to enter his village and interview him.

Chen found himself at odds with the government when he filed a lawsuit in 2006 on behalf of residents of his hometown, Linyi, over the city’s practice of forced abortions and sterilizations, a municipal policy that runs counter to national regulations.

City officials were accused of forced sterilizations or abortions on as many as 7,000 residents and torturing relatives of people who had escaped such measures.

Chen has been supposedly free after a four-year prison term on what human rights activists have called trumped-up charges of “intentional damage of public property” and “gathering people to block traffic.” But reporters arriving at Linyi in Shandong province this week were blocked from entering and even had rocks thrown at them.

The physical confrontations between foreign press and (plainclothes) security officers who refused to identify themselves come on the heels of reports that Chen and his wife were subjected last week to beatings so severe that they were unable to get up from their bed. The attack is believed to have been ordered by state security officials angry over a secret video smuggled out from his home, documenting the Chen family’s life under constant, 24-hour surveillance. The video made its way to the U.S., where it was posted on the Internet by China Aid, an American Christian human rights group.

"I was in a small prison, and now I am in a larger prison," says Chen to the camera in the hour-long video, which shows security agents peering over walls into the family’s home. Chen later notes that he and his family are monitored by three shifts of security, each one consisting of more than 20 agents.

In a bid to completely isolate him from the world, security agents have confiscated Chen’s phone, and he has no access to the Internet. Jamming equipment has been installed around his home to block mobile signals, while friends and villagers who attempt to visit Chen and his family are warned that he is a traitor and that they may be charged as accomplices to his crime.

Security even drove 60 miles to detain Chen’s brother when they discovered he had purchased a SIM card for his phone.

The video is chilling in its telling of life under home detention despite the fact Chen is officially free, and it's another reminder of the fine line activists walk while agitating for change in China. While the Chinese government has been silent on Chen’s status, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton just last month cited his case while calling on Beijing to improve its human rights record.

BEIJING – When the Philippines took the much-criticized decision to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring a top Chinese dissident last December, the official rationale was that it was meant to help save the lives of Filipinos facing the death penalty in China over drug-trafficking crimes.

But nevertheless, China’s Supreme Court still ruled for the execution next week of three convicted Filipino drug couriers – setting off a high-stakes diplomatic game to see if Beijing will show mercy and return Manila’s political favor in kind.

“It is time for them to demonstrate their pronounced statements of improved or closer bilateral ties. This will be a test,” declared Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, who faces mounting domestic pressure over the controversy.

“No one is privileged to transcend the law,” declared the Chinese embassy in Manila, calling the death sentence “the final verdict by the Chinese judicial authorities.”

‘Scourge of drugs’
China maintains a draconian drug control policy, to fight what officials would describe as the “scourge that has wrought havoc to the Chinese nation in history,” alluding to the Opium Wars of the past.

China carried out the execution of a British national convicted of smuggling 4,000 grams of heroin in Dec. 2009, despite then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s own plea for clemency.

Under China’s law, trafficking more than 50 grams of heroin is punishable by death.

The three Filipino death-row inmates, two female and one male, were separately convicted of smuggling between 4,000 to more than 6,000 grams of heroin into China. They reportedly served as “mules” for international drug-smuggling syndicates.

“Drugs are a worldwide problem and we have to respect their (China’s) sovereignty,” Aquino told the Philippine media.
But he appealed for “reciprocity” and a stay of execution, citing that the Philippines has not executed Chinese nationals found guilty of similar offenses since the country has abolished capital punishment.

“We are not asking for exoneration,” added a Philippine foreign affairs official. Manila is hoping for a reprieve or commutation to life imprisonment.

Judicial vs. strategic interests?
Government officials in Manila do not disagree that drug offenses need to be severely punished, but they are looking at their plea for clemency through the lens of their strategic alliance with China.

“We do not question the decision of the Chinese courts in meting [out] the death penalty to the accused,” said Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay, but he is still planning on traveling to Beijing Friday to plead Manila's case on humanitarian grounds.

“There is no legal remedy,” a Philippine senator acknowledged, adding that this should serve as a lesson to avoid involvement in the illegal drug trade.

But Aquino said he will continue “last-ditch” diplomatic efforts to avoid the death penalty, calling his request “very, very reasonable.” He added, “And we have improved bilateral ties with China. This will be a test.”

Last December, the Chinese government expressed “appreciation” for Manila’s Nobel Peace Prize boycott, which triggered “shock and disappointment” among human rights groups. 

As a further gesture in China’s favor, Manila recently extradited 14 Taiwanese accused of criminal fraud to Beijing, not to Taipei, infuriating the Taiwanese government and putting the interests of some 80,000 Filipinos working in Taiwan at risk.

Manila has “jumped the gun” on the issue of China-Taiwan unification, according to one commentator. 

Aquino has requested “a phone conversation” with Chinese President Hu Jintao, but so far no response.

It remains to be seen how the executions, if carried out, will impact public opinion and the ties between China and the neighboring strategic archipelago.

BEIJING – Last week, everyone in China was thrilled by the news that Peng Gaofeng, a young father, had finally found his 6-year-old son who had been kidnapped three years earlier in the southern city of Shenzhen. 
 
For Peng Gaofeng and his wife, the reunion was a mix of exhilaration and tears when they finally saw their son Peng Wenle. The elder Peng had traveled all over the country looking for his son since March 2008, trying to get help from local police and posting ads online. His efforts had been to no avail, until he received a call at the end of January from someone 800 miles away, along with a photo of his son.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Peng Wenle, Peng Gaofeng's son, is chased by media after he was reunited with his parents.

Child abduction and smuggling are big problems in China. It’s hard to find official statistics on exactly how many children are missing, the government estimates that up to 20,000 children are trafficked every year, but sociologists believe the number to be around 200,000 every year.

Some abducted children are used by criminal gangs to earn money from begging on the street, others are forced into manual labor, and others are sold for adoption, both domestically and overseas. Particularly in poor rural areas, the demand for a male heir and a culture preference for boys, combined with China’s strict one-child policy, have created an unfortunate market for stolen boys.

Now Chinese activists, with the government’s approval, are using the Internet and social media tools to rescue abducted children.

Social media campaign
Coincidentally, just a few weeks before Peng was reunited with his son, Yu Jianrong, a government critic and professor from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, started an Internet campaign to try to reunite parents and abducted children, who have been forced to become beggars.  |
 
Yu Jianrong’s microblog on Sina (a Chinese version of Twitter) urged netizens to upload photos of young beggars they see on the street so that parents who are missing children can look through the images to find their children.

microblog/ Duanzhouguozhengzong

A photo of a woman beggar with a child taken in Zhaoqing, Guangdong province. The photo was sent to the microblog blog page trying to unite parents with their abducted children.

Yu’s appeal, which started around the same time as Peng’s reunion with his son but did not prompt it, has received a massive response. Within three weeks, more than 220,000 followers joined the campaign and more than 1,000 photos from all over China have been posted onto the Internet – six of which were recognized by parents who had lost children. 
 
In an online survey initiated by ifeng, a Web portal, 70 percent of those surveyed believe that taking photos of child beggars and posting them on the Internet could “rescue a great amount of kidnapped children and crack down on child smuggling." Celebrities including singers, actors, sports commentators, real estate tycoons and children's writers have also started participating.
 
Even the government has given the campaign a thumbs up, instead of resorting to its usual agitated stance toward mass campaigns involving too many followers.

On Feb. 11, the Ministry of Public Security asked the public to call 110 (China's police hotline) if they see any suspicious child beggars and promised that they will relentlessly punish any individuals or organizations who abuse children or force them into begging. They said DNA samples will be collected from unidentified young beggars and entered into a national database for future investigations. A phone hotline has also been set up by 1,000 lawyers to provide legal help for kidnapping victims.   The punishment for smuggling children is also severe; kidnappers face the death penalty if they are convicted.
 
Invasion of privacy?
But Yu’s “rescue child beggar” campaign has not escaped criticism and resistance. Some netizens questioned whether the campaign might amount to image and privacy infringement, if children may be retaliated against or further abused as a result of the campaign, and expressed doubts that the action would really be an effective solution.
 
Lian Yue, a revered freelance columnist, is among many who believe taking photos of the beggars is actually insulting the disadvantaged. “Yes, in this photo campaign, many people believe as long as they rescue one child, it’s big accomplishment. Accordingly I can say that as long as they hurt one beggar, it’s a big crime. And we all know the latter has happened so many times already," he wrote.
 
Other critics also cited an example in which police forcefully tested the DNA of a man and a boy begging in the street, only to find out they were actually father and son. “Beggars don’t deserve rights and dignity? Why do we have the privilege to take photos as much as we like?” one Chinese critic tweeted.
 
In a country where the social security system is still absent or extremely weak in many rural areas, families feel insecure unless they have more than one children to support them in old age, but the one-child policy prevents large families. Many local orphanages make it hard for Chinese parents to adopt, because they prefer Westerners who usually provide a much bigger “service fee” for adoptions. And in some extremely poor places, families buy young girls as future wives for their sons if parents fear the boys will be too poor to marry.
 
Peng’s case is a typical example – the man who kidnapped his son later abducted another girl to be raised as the boy’s future wife.
 
The Ministry of Civil Affairs estimates China has 1 to 1.5 million child beggars. It’s hard to say how long the photo campaign will last and how much passion the public will have as time goes by. Their fervor may be crippled after a recent police statement saying that most of the child beggars are forced onto the streets by their own parents or relatives, while a large number of kidnapped children actually end up being bought by families looking to adopt.

Adrienne Mong

Beijing -- In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ve posted a gallery of true love – as seen in Beijing amongst young urbanites.  It’s a phenomenon sometimes bewildering: men carrying their girlfriends’ handbags. 

Huang Han, a psychology professor who also serves as a counselor on a popular reality tv dating show called “If You Are The One,” said the trend is an expression of affection.  “It’s clearly not because the woman can’t carry her own purse since those purses are usually very small,” she said.  “So it’s a way of demonstrating that he cares about her.” 

It’s also about old-fashioned gallantry.  “It’s very gentlemanly to carry the woman’s bag,” said one Chinese friend who does not request that her boyfriend carry her purse but quietly wishes he would. 

The gesture might also be about control, observed Huang.  The woman’s in charge, but she allows her boyfriend to hold her most cherished possession, her handbag. 

But girlfriend might be getting some competition. 

The manbag. 

This fashion accessory is viewed as the height of “trappings of the successful Chinese alpha male.” 

“In public, it’s very ugly for a very strong guy to carry a pink handbag,” said Cui Dan, the Fashion Director at GQ China.  Cui, who said he would only ever carry a girlfriend’s purse is if she had her hands full or under extreme circumstances, thinks the trend is a remnant of the country’s early stages of open-door reform.  “I don’t think a modern city girl would want her handbag carried by the guy.” 

Adrienne Mong

Anyway, “many young Chinese men carry their own handbags,” he continued.  “For his own fashion self, it’s an accessory.  His own accessory.” 

Adrienne Mong

Xinhua

Popular actor and singer Jay Chou (R) and actress Lin Chiling perform during a rehearsal of the Spring Festival Gala Evening.

BEIJING – China returned to work this week after another Chinese New Year highlighted by the traditional talking points: the scarcity of train tickets, the constant cacophony of fireworks and gossip over one of the country’s most watched shows, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

The Gala, an annual television event since the eighties, is a show heavy on singing, acrobatic performances, magic and cross-talk – the popular form of pun-heavy comedic dialogue akin to Albert & Costello.

Molded in the image of variety shows once popular in America, the Gala has become a modern institution here in China not unlike “Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve” or the annual showing of movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” during the holiday season.

Though it is still one of the biggest annual draws, bringing in over 700 million viewers every year, the Gala’s numbers have steadily declined in recent years due to a perceived over-commercialization of the show and a staleness of content that has started to wear on an increasingly sophisticated Chinese television audience.

It is a familiar problem that has manifested itself in other state produced content. The People’s Daily, China’s most read daily newspaper with a circulation of three to four million readers has over the years years garnered a reputation of being drab and chock full of lackluster propaganda. That dullness was captured last year when popular China blog, Danwei.org, demonstrated how the state-run paper had notoriously used the exact same layout for its National People’s Congress coverage from 2004-2009.

Courtesy of Danwei.org

The front page coverage of the annual National People's Congress from state-run newspaper, The People's Daily, looks eerily familiar from year to year.

Top: 2004, 2005, 2006; Bottom: 2007, 2008, 2009

Similarly, despite attempts in recent years to freshen up the look and feel of the show, CCTV’s “7PM Network News Hour,” has also slowly bled viewers over the years due to complaints about the unchanging format of the show and its content.

Sina

Laughing Brother at the 2011 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

Despite numbers that would make any news network in the world blush – an estimated 135 million viewers a night – the show is often caustically described as consisting of three segments: 1) See how hard our leaders work for us; 2) See how prosperous our country is; and 3) See how terrible the rest of the world has it.

Given the way these two institutions of Chinese propaganda have been treated, it’s no small surprise the size and pointed earnestness of the Gala has made it a popular target for lampooners and cynics who have grown tired of the forced cheer and watered-down entertainment that is demanded by state censors and the need to appeal to such a mass audience.

Sina

Laughing Brother at the 2004 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

As with any other production of similar scale and cost, the Gala has become a lightning rod for accusations of plagiarism and a favorite for rooting out production mistakes inevitable with live television. Perhaps most famous of these in recent times have been the flubbed lines from the “Black Three Minutes,” when during the 2007 gala, five hosts flubbed their lines, leading to some embarrassed "dead air" on live television, uproarious audience laughter and an alleged furious backstage fight between the famous hosts.

This year’s favorite though, has been ten years in the making. There has long been debate about just who makes up the audience at these highly orchestrated affairs. Prominent businessmen, government workers and celebrities are expected of course, but many have speculated that the studio audience is also heavily stacked with what the Chinese call, longtao, or “Utility Men.”

Sina

Laughing Brother at the 2001 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

Their role? As paid audience members -- to laugh, applaud and cheer at all the right moments.

The presence of longtao at the Gala has long been suspected and some have even been picked out by eagle-eyed Gala watchers. However, one netizen has picked out the king of them all: the man Chinese are fondly calling online, “Laughing Brother.”

In an amazing show of netizen sleuthing, someone at the popular Chinese web-portal, Sina, found video-proof of a longtao who has been at every gala over the last decade. In each shot, he can be seen smiling broadly or applauding enthusiastically, doing his part to ensure success and glory for the show.

The posting has been enthusiastically received online in China, spurred on in no small part by the obvious jovial nature of “Laughing Brother” and the very apparent need for his special services in the first place.  

While this incident can be interpreted as another egg on CCTV’s collective face, it also is simply another manifestation of the savvy and sophistication Chinese netizens have shown in bringing a sense of humor and a degree of accountability to Chinese popular society.

Or it could just be another compelling reason for China’s propaganda machine to lighten up.

Xiong Yini with her son, Le Le, before he disappeared.

It’s one of those stories with an unbelievable ending.

Three years ago, we met Peng Gaofeng outside the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing. The Summer Olympics had just ended, and Peng was in town with a group of parents who had come together from across the country.

Their cause?

Missing children.

Peng’s story was typical.  His 3-year-old son, Peng Wenle or Le Le, was snatched from outside their home in March 2008.  The kidnapping was even captured on local security cameras.

It took three long, painful years to find Le Le, and it wasn’t just thanks to a stroke of luck, but a keyboard.

Just over a week ago, a student recognized Le Le - from a photo posted on a microblog - in a village at least 800 miles away from his family, and he contacted Peng.  At first, Peng didn’t believe him.  After all, he’d endured years of fruitless leads.  But then the student sent him a photo, which Peng instantly recognized as Le Le.

The details of this amazing story first came from a Chinese journalist who had long championed Peng’s cause and who was responsible for posting Le Le’s photo on the microblog.  He also shot dramatic video footage of their extremely emotional reunion.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the reunion Tuesday.

We’ll have more of our own details soon.

In the meantime, this is the story we originally did for NBC's Nightly News:

And the World Blog we did on Peng's plight: 'I didn't look after my child'

Adrienne Mong/File

Tokyo is considered the original megacity.

TOKYO, Japan – Don’t get us wrong, we like big cities.

That’s why we love living in Beijing and visiting, well, any of Asia’s capitals.

Tokyo, in particular, is a favorite.

But megacities?

That’s a whole ‘nother thing.

We were filming a story in the Japanese capital when a story emerged that local officials in southern China’s Pearl River Delta were planning to create the world’s largest megacity.

The report was long on impressive statistics.  Nine cities in Guangdong Province would link up 42 million people just north of Hong Kong.  The area would measure 16,000 square miles – that’s roughly twice the size of the state of New Jersey – and would encompass the nation’s manufacturing heartland, which accounts for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.

It was, however, a little short on details.  Roughly 150 infrastructure projects spanning six years would interweave the cities’ transport, main utilities, and telecoms services. 

Which begged more questions: What does that mean exactly apart from building more bridges, highways, and rail links?  Does a high-speed rail a megacity make?  How does one standardize telecoms when there are only state-run companies?  How would the Chinese hukou (a decades-old household/residency registry system originally designed to impede the rural-to-urban migration flow) work in this instance? And how does one define a megacity anyway?

Somewhat moot questions, however, since a few days later officials in Guangdong denied the report and others similar to it.  Calling the accounts “false,” they said that “Guangdong province is improving integration of infrastructure, industries, urban-rural planning, environmental protection and basic public services in the delta region” all in line with a masterplan approved by the central government in 2008.

One billion urbanites by 2030
The fact remains, however, that China is urbanizing at an unimaginable speed.  Every year, an estimated 15 to 20 million people are moving into cities to achieve an urbanization rate of 70 percent of the entire national population by 2030.  (That, incidentally, means one billion Chinese will be living in cities.)

To accommodate such a flow, roughly half of all new buildings constructed on the planet during the first 25 years of this century will be in China, according to a recent book that details the environmental impact of the nation’s growth. The country will also have to build perhaps as many as 170 mass transit systems and pave nearly 2,000 square miles of road.

Already, China has seven cities with populations over 10 million. 

“For China, with its high population density and its land and water scarcity, megacity development is probably the most efficient option,” writes Sean S.C. Chiao of AECOM.  “Chinese megacities will be hubs for jobs, culture, leisure, and education, a model that will be radically different from the manufacturing-center model that forms the basis of many Chinese cities today.”

Such sentiments are echoed by some international environmentalists, who believe energy and other basic services can be delivered more efficiently to concentrated populations.

Other urban planners say megacities can serve as hubs for smaller urban satellites and thereby avoid the dead-city phenomenon that plagues countries like the United Kingdom, where the workforce migrates to London at the expense of the smaller cities.

Adrienne Mong/NBC News

The area around Beijing is tipped to become a Chinese megacity known as the Bohai Economic Rim.

Megacity = Megacongestion?
But back to Tokyo.  This metropolis, which still feels like a city of the future with its gleaming skyscrapers, rigorous pollution controls, and high standards of efficiency, was the largest in the world in 1975, at the time already numbering over 26 million residents. 

Today, it’s the center of a declining economy, just like London and, yes, these days, even New York.  “All suffer growing income inequality and outward migration of middle-class families.  Even in the best of circumstances, the new age of the megacity might well be an unparalleled human congestion and gross inequality,” observed Joel Kotkin. 

Congestion is a major problem already.  Beijing is believed to have 20 million people and is notorious for its intractable traffic jams.  Municipal authorities so far have failed to find any immediate solutions to accommodate a fast-growing population, of not just people, but also vehicles. The city added five more subway lines last December, has instituted an alternate license plate numbering system to limit the number of cars on the road, and introduced a license plate registration lottery system in January that has been widely ridiculed.

And that's without getting into the challenge of marshalling resources like water to supply a megapolis.  Beijing – which has been linked to Tianjin and Hebei Province as part its own megacity – has experienced its driest winter in more than 20 years, and its South-to-North water diversion project (if the whole system ever gets off the ground successfully) is highly controversial.

So while everything seems to run smoothly in Tokyo, we can’t help but wonder whether that is possible in China.  There is no doubt that the Chinese can build cities that look just as shiny and modern as those in Japan, but will they run as efficiently?  As cleanly? 

More curiously, who would want to live in a city or megacity of 40 million or more?

Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press

Annette Verschuren, right, president of Home Depot's Asian operations in Beijing, 2006.

BEIJING – The news of Home Depot’s closure in Beijing brought up a range of emotions in me, mainly nostalgia.  

In 2008, I spent virtually every day in the month-long build-up to the Beijing Summer Olympics ferrying a veritable army of NBC engineers, set-builders and producers to two local Home Depots to purchase everything from lumber to carpeting to an air compressor.

Each time, I was impressed by the store employees’ professionalism, knowledge and eagerness to serve.

Which always made me wonder: Why wasn’t anybody else in here?

The U.S. home-improvement retailer, which has more than 2,200 stores worldwide, announced late last month that it had closed its last store in Beijing.  The closure cut its presence on the mainland down to one store in Xi’an and six stores in Tianjin, home to the company’s China corporate headquarters.

Last week, we blogged about one of the major issues for many American companies investing in China: their investments are based on the long-term hope that China's market will eventually catch up to the goods and services they offer.

In the case of Home Depot, it would appear that Chinese consumers never took to the company’s ethos of do-it-yourself (DIY) that has been the source of its success in the United States and elsewhere around the world.

Ideal market conditions
That isn’t to say that Home Depot misread the market.  A corporate overview of the Chinese market underscored many of the compelling statistics and trends that made China a target for Home Depot and many other global home-improvement companies, most notably Britain’s B&Q.

China in the last decade has become a market of new homeowners, many of whom are buying homes that developers have left unfinished and require significant investment in home improvement.  Tour a new shiny residential high-rise anywhere in the country and you will often find apartments that lack light fixtures, proper flooring and even doorbells. 

These conditions paired with a rapidly growing middle-class seemed to create an ideal opening for Home Depot’s primary product: home construction expertise and quality installation services.

The problem was, while demand and need had been factored into Home Depot’s equation, one human element appeared to have not: will.

The engineers and builders I worked with from the United States and London in 2008 were experienced and motivated to design and create structures and sets. They walked into Home Depot each time knowing what they wanted to buy and the right questions to ask about the products they bought. While certainly not representative of all Americans, these men carried about them that DIY culture manifested in garages all across the United States.

Best service, lowest price?
Except that most Chinese don’t have garages, tool collections or the initiative to take on a remodeling project on their own. In a nation with a sizable pool of unskilled labor floating around cities and countless small-time construction companies available for hire, it is simply more convenient and cheaper to outsource such jobs to others.

Tina, a landlord in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, recently fixed up a new home for her parents who moved to the capital this month. She had never heard of Home Depot even though there is one a mere five-minute drive away, but she had shopped at a B&Q before.  She elected to turn to a local contractor to remodel the apartment and to source supplies because of a common issue facing many western companies: price point.

“I tried shopping there once, but I felt there were more choices at eHome [a Chinese competitor] and that it was cheaper…. I could bargain there,” she said.

Alan, another landlord who has lived and worked in the United States and has been to Home Depots in both countries, suggested that while price point was a serious consideration, trust and familiarity also played a role.

“I want the best service but lowest price,” said Alan, “Home Depot in China, I think it’s not attractive to me.  If I decorate again, I will probably have a friend who lives in the area introduce me to a company so I know I can trust it to give me a fair price and service.”

“I think Home Depot needs to invest money in teaching Chinese people about DIY,” he added.

Adrienne Mong/File

Will China's gradually shrinking migrant labor pool give rise to the "DIY" conditions Home Depot needs to thrive?

It’s one of the new economic realities that have come from globalization and the Sino-U.S. relationship today: more and more American businesses are seeing their growth and profits coming from China rather than the United States.

While Home Depot was unsuccessful in catching the home-improvement wave this time, the company’s epitaph has yet to be written.  It still has a presence in China and is currently focused on the rapidly developing second- and third-tier cities that are transforming at unseen speeds.  Perhaps with a focus on a lower price-point and greater consumer education, Home Depot could come out of this setback a stronger and bolder company than the one that cautiously stepped into the market back in 2006. 

In addition, as China’s surplus labor pool continues to shrink and building prices go up, it is entirely possible that regular Chinese will be simply forced to take on the home construction projects many Americans routinely perform.

In a post that will go up tomorrow, my colleague, Adrienne Mong will address the growth of the megacity in China and whether its development bodes well for a country that is seeing the fastest urbanization rate ever.

BEIJING – It was a commercial that had many folks over here scratching their heads, once they got over the initial reaction of being offended. 

Is China so difficult to understand that an American company seeking to break into the market here would get it so wrong?

Groupon’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featuring Timothy Hutton mocking the loss of Tibetan autonomy in the same breath as shilling for a cheap Tibetan meal managed to do the seemingly impossible: unite the Free Tibet crowd with China nationalists in their outrage at the commercial.

For English-language reaction, check out the comments on the YouTube site, where many people were angered by the trivialization of the Tibetan people's plight.

In Chinese over at Sina.com, many Internet users posted comments along the lines of:

“Groupon, do you really want to advance into China or what?”

Good question.

Seeking a China partner
For weeks, it’s been rumored that the Chicago-based deal-of-the-day website had teamed up with Tencent to launch a co-branded joint venture in China. Tencent is China’s biggest Internet company by market value and the provider of QQ, the mainland’s most popular free instant messaging service. (Tencent says it has 636.6 million active QQ user accounts.)

Neither company has commented on the reports, but China Daily quoted an anonymous source Monday saying the two are in a partnership and will be hiring 1,000 people within three months.

Well, maybe not so fast now.

For those of you unfamiliar with this narrative, the issue of Tibetan independence is a non-starter in China, where the government and most people believe Tibet has always been, and will always be, a part of the Chinese nation.

In the face of a growing chorus of outrage across two continents, Groupon posted an explainer for its Super Bowl ads:

“Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world.”

Whatever one thinks of the concept and whether the Chinese government has a sense of humour, there remains one sticking point. 

Groupon has agreed to contribute matching donations to three featured charities, one of which is the Tibet Fund.  It’s a non-governmental organization set up in the U.S. to work with Tibetan refugees and has the blessing of the Dalai Lama (a very unpopular figure in Chinese government circles), and its stance is clearly stated on its website:  “The Tibet Fund will continue to focus its efforts on strengthening the exile community, for it is here that Tibetan culture and national identity are being sustained.” 

This is how you do it, Groupon
In the meantime, the senior management over at Tencent must be wishing that they’d been consulted on the Super Bowl ad.

The Chinese Internet giant found itself in high praise over the weekend over its own TV commercial, which aired during the annual Spring Festival Gala last week.

The Gala is a variety show broadcast on CCTV that rings in the Chinese New Year and draws an estimated 700 million viewers – essentially the Chinese advertising bonanza equivalent of the Super Bowl.

The commercial, “Your Companion of 12 Years,” was posted online and went viral virtually overnight – not in China but among overseas Chinese communities, especially those in the U.S., for it tells an all too familiar story: a young Chinese man who leaves behind his family in order to live out his dream of studying and working in the U.S.

Sappy as it might appear to Americans, the Tencent ad has been hugely popular, in particular for drawing out the hankies among homesick Chinese unable to return home for the Chinese New Year holiday. (In the most recent available data, nearly 130,000 Chinese students went to the United States to study in 2009).

With additional research from Emily Ni.

GRACE LIANG / Reuters

A child dressed in a traditional Chinese costume stands in front of lanterns at a temple fair to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Beijing Thursday.

BEIJING – As the Year of the Rabbit hops in, there could be new forces at work for Britain’s royal wedding.
 
For China’s top fortune teller, Chen Shuaifu, April 29 isn’t exactly an auspicious day for the gathering of the rabbit, the rooster and the dog. But if the “right steps” are taken, the royal wedding day could still be a good beginning for Kate Middleton and Prince William.
 
“Prince William should avoid wearing red, while Kate must wear white, gold and black,” said Chen.
 
While it’s tempting to dismiss the words of Chen, a soft-spoken former defense reporter and editor, he is the chairman of the China National Feng-shui Association, which has some 38,000 members across China.
 
Feng-shui, which stands for wind and water, is the ancient art that studies the forces and elements of nature to divine the future, attract good fortune and deter bad luck. It has survived in China for more than 1,000 years and has seen a revival in recent years.
 
“I am a descendant of Chen Tuan, the greatest feng-shui master of the Song Dynasty,” Chen said during a recent interview with NBC News, referring to a philosopher who lived in the 10th century.  
 
Reconciling the zodiacs
While both Kate and William were born in 1982 in the Western calendar, the Chinese lunar calendar says Kate was born in the Year of the Rooster, while Prince William was born in the Year of the Dog.
 
Their zodiacs are “quite compatible,” according to Chen. “But they will be married in the Year of the Rabbit, which is good for people born in the Year of the Dog, but bad for people in the Year of the Rooster,” he warned.
 
“Kate was born on a freezing winter day, so she must be an extreme and stubborn lady,” said Chen.

Zhu Tong / NBC News

Chen Shuaifu at work in Beijing.

“Prince William was born in the fiery month of June, so he also has an extreme temperament, with a quick reflex and is excellent in academic studies.”
 
“To reconcile their horoscopes, Prince Williams must not wear red clothes and should often go swimming, while Kate must wear white, gold and black,” he firmly suggested.
 
“And golden utensils must be used, because gold can contain the water (necessary for good feng-shui). Water was born from gold, and black also belongs to water,” he added. 
 
‘Soak the ring in wine’
Chinese feng-shui believes that human fate can be altered through proper actions. “If I predict that someone driving north will encounter a disaster, I will tell him to head south instead,” Chen explained.
 
One case in point is the royal engagement ring that belonged to Princess Diana. “She led a miserable life, the unlucky energy in the ring will be too much, and the living should not wear the ring worn by the dead,” he said.
 
“But there are two solutions,” Chen suggested. “One is to soak the ring in wine for six or seven hours, and another is to soak it in salt, to cleanse away the tragedies.”

Chen admitted that he could only provide limited guidance and that a deeper understanding of the forces that could affect the royal wedding and the married life of Prince William and Kate would require “a quiet environment” and “three or four hours” of work in their presence.
 
Besides, after the wedding, “70 percent” of the couple’s fate will be decided by Prince William, according to Chen. “As a prince, he will have important influence on world affairs. So I suggest he contribute a lot more to society and have a positive attitude, to repel bad luck and any threat to their marriage.”
 
Is Feng-shui credible?
Chen is aware of the skepticism held by many toward feng-shui. “I can only say one sentence: Everything will depend on human efforts and a positive attitude can change everything.”
 
He pointed out that more and more people are seeking out the counsel of feng-shui masters, including government and corporate officials. He ticked off a few examples of his own.

“I have been invited by Foxconn to help deal with the frequency of workers’ suicide deaths in their factories in south China ... I determined the wedding day for famous actor Tang Zhenye for his seventh marriage … And later, he had twin daughters.”

He also suggested that feng-shui is at work all the time, in ways many might miss.
 
“In Beijing, there is the Bird’s Nest in the Olympic park, the Bird’s Egg for the National Grand Theater, the Bird’s Beak of the Millennium Altar, the Bird’s Legs of the new CCTV Tower, and the Bird’s Wings of the Beijing Capital Airport,” he said, suggesting a grand feng-shui design of a bird to attract good fortune.

The bird can fly and is an apt symbol for rising Beijing, rising China, he explained.

"Who designed it all? I can't tell you, it's state secret," he said.

Zhu Tong contributed to this report.   

For all the latest on the royal wedding, click on the Windsor Knot, msnbc.com's blog dedicated to the countdown to the big day.

Getty Images

Caterpillar Inc. enjoyed boosts in total revenue in 2010 of 31% to $42.59 billion. This was spurred on by a 43% increase in sales in the Asia/Pacific region.

BEIJING – Politicians and pundits in China and the U.S. have long espoused an idea of win-win scenarios, whereby both countries and their respected companies can coexist and thrive.

In China’s heavy machinery market though, all signs point to a pitched battle for market supremacy.

U.S. heavy machinery giant, Caterpillar, released its fourth quarter profits for 2010 last week, reporting a 62% increase in revenue to $12.8 billion on the back of renewed demand in emerging markets.

One market in particular that has been the focus of American construction and machinery companies is China. In the case of Caterpillar, the company deems this market so important that it listed “Win in China” as one of its “Big 8 Imperatives” for 2011-2015.

In the eyes of Caterpillar though, nothing short of being number one in China will do. At a trade fair for its suppliers in Tucson, Ariz., in 2006, Caterpillar executives effectively declared that if they weren’t number one in China by 2020, their status as a major world player should be called into question.

It was a bold claim to make and one that will pit Caterpillar against an entire Chinese machinery industry that has undergone dramatic growth in the last decade. A Morgan Stanley report that came out earlier this year forecasted that Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) could possibly increase their capacity to build large tonnage excavators by 2012 by 300% to 130,000 units – the anticipated total need for the entire market.

To put that in perspective, China’s OEMs did not even make excavators 10 years ago.

Chris Edwards, Chief Representative for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers in China – the largest heavy machinery auction company in the world – has spent the better part of six years trying to open the Chinese market for its first auction run by a wholly-owned foreign auctioneer company.

In the process, he has gained a unique perspective on the machinery market in China, the problems foreign companies face trying to compete here and Chinese manufacturers’ global ambitions.  

Q. China has garnered this reputation as being a difficult place to invest into for American companies. In the case of heavy machinery, that seems to start with the way Chinese construction companies view and value their investments in equipment. How is the Chinese machinery market different than the American?

A: It’s different in maturity of the marketplace. China as we all know is only thirty years into its economic reforms. In the construction machinery business, the rapid development and changes have only come in the last decade or so and started at a very low baseline. So the maturity of the construction/machinery market has rapidly changed, but it started at a low end where price was the number one issue for anyone investing in a construction machine.

Americans value efficiency. In an underdeveloped growing marketplace, there are a lot of inefficiencies. Whereas in a highly competitive, mature economy market…To compete you need to be sure your machine is working, is of top quality and that the service chain of that manufacturer can also be there to fix that machine quickly so you can get it back to work. Those are the demands of a highly mature market.

In the case of a market like China, companies are not looking for high quality as much as they just want to keep their capital costs low and try to maximize their profits. They aren’t necessarily concerned about factors like efficiency, because there are other factors that create advantage for them other than efficiency and competition.

Ed Flanagan/ NBC News

Chris Edwards, Chief Representative for Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers in China has been working for the company in Asia since 1996.

Q: Taking into account the over-capacity issues and this completely different value system towards machinery, where is all of this optimism towards the Chinese market coming from?

A: Well, the overcapacity is in production of product. Why Cat and any high-end foreign company think they can break into the market is because there is a lack of capacity in good service and that’s where they hope to succeed and that’s where they compete all around the world. They compete in value-added on top of the high-level product they have.

It’s like the story of the tortoise and the hare: Chinese machinery companies have shot ahead, ramping up production and sales in the China market while foreign companies are playing the waiting game – waiting for the market to evolve to match their level while planting the seeds and developing the business.

Q: The Morgan Stanley report noted that companies like Caterpillar, John Deere and Komatsu have competitive advantages over Chinese machinery companies in higher tonnage equipment. Can you explain what exactly higher tonnage vehicles are compared to what China dominates?

A: Like anything, the bigger the size of the machine, the more complex it is and the more technical advantage you need to create a quality machine. So what you can see from that report is that in excavators, the Chinese market is dominated by locals because in the low tonnage, excavator machines are less complex and it’s simpler for them to compete. As you get into the higher tonnage, it takes more technical expertise and experience and currently the foreign manufacturers have that advantage.

In China, the two workhorses in the market are wheel loaders and excavators. Everybody uses them: mining, infrastructure, there are multiple applications. So when we are talking about thirty ton excavators that’s where the foreigner manufacturers have their advantage because of their technical know-how in building them.

With wheel loaders, the other workhorse, it’s a pretty simple machine. It’s four wheels, two axles and an engine, it’s not that technical. So that’s dominated by the Chinese manufacturers, it’s very hard for foreigners to break into that market, because it’s so simple and the value-add that foreigners put on their wheel loaders, there is no need for it in this marketplace. So you can buy four or five Chinese wheel loaders for the price of a new foreign one, so there is no price advantage.

Q. Caterpillar has famously said that if it isn't number one in China by 2020, its position as a global leader should be called into question. Is there concern that the maturity many foreign machinery companies are relying on may not happen and they will simply be surpassed by the current Chinese model of machinery production?

A: No, I don’t think there is concern that the maturity won’t happen, but just the estimated time. Will it be quick? Will it be slow? That’s the big question. But certainly the maturity will happen, it has to happen, its evolutionary it’s out of the control of anyone’s hands.

Q: At the same time that American companies are trying to take a larger part of the market here, Chinese manufacturing companies are branching out into the international market. Inversely to what Caterpillar declared, one Chinese manufacturer, Sany, has that by 2015 it wants to have 50% of their sales originate from outside of China. Is somebody making the wrong bet? A: Only time will tell who made the right bet.… Caterpillar is investing in China, but not only in China, all the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) counties as well. They see most of their growth coming from the developing market over the next twenty years, China probably being the strongest of those emerging markets. The domestic companies see the China market is building more and more capacity that this market can’t handle, so they have to diversify and that’s where Caterpillar’s strength is: They have global diversity so if one economy goes down, they can manage in another economy that is going up.

These domestic manufacturers are all just riding China right now and they realize they have to diversify and they are trying to find out where their strengths are. Well, they are going to expand overseas for sure, but it’s not going to come from the mature high-end economies like North America and Europe, it’s going to come from regions like Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Courtesy Ritchie Bros.

Despite being the largest machinery auctioneer company in the world, Ritchie Bros. has yet to have held an auction in China.

Q: Why not the North American market?

A: The challenge for them entering the U.S. market is that a highly competitive, high-level service market is the baseline there. High-level product quality is already expected by American customers, that’s a given for them. So to enter the U.S. market, Chinese businesses will have to learn how to compete on service level and the supply chain side, which they currently cannot do yet.

It’s easier for them to enter a maturing or developing market and provide those kinds of services where the expectations aren’t as great and you can compete on machine price, because in most developing countries, everybody is price first, services later and that’s their competitive edge.

Q: We’ve established that the next logical step for Chinese companies is to get into emerging markets. Is there concern for both Ritchie Bros. and American machinery companies that if these markets become heavily influenced by current Chinese machine consumption patterns, it’ll keep your companies out of those markets?

A: For us, it’s a good thing the Chinese are breaking into those markets. That means there are more people owning machines and more people needing a channel to resell them and we can provide our services to them.

From the manufacturers’ point of view, they know already that they get a niche market there, like here, for high-end, high-service machines. But the Chinese will certainly put pressure on those guys in those markets. But as those markets mature over time, they will gravitate to the high-end that American companies provide.

But that’s not to say the Chinese will always be low-end, they will always mature overtime. And just like the Japanese in the 70s and the Koreans in the 80s, when they entered into the market they were perceived to be lower-end quality. Since then, they have come right up to the high-end to the same level as their top-end western competitors. So you can very well see Chinese manufacturers competing at the highest levels in 15-20 years.

Q: Let’s turn to your company, Ritchie Bros. You are the biggest machinery auctioneer company in the world, but you haven’t done any auctions in China.

A: China only introduced auction laws in 1996 and they only opened up the market to wholly-opened foreign auction companies of any type – art, antique, etc. – at the WTO ascension in 2001. To this date, there is no wholly-owned foreign auction company running auctions due to a couple technical reasons. I believe the auction laws are a bit too rigid compared to international auction practices, even for arts and antiques.

The other side is just waiting for the market to mature. There is a certain time in the marketplace where used equipment becomes an important part market and that moment is just cresting now in China. It’s just emerging as Chinese manufacturers realize they have saturated the market with new machines over the last dozen years and now they need to go back and sell another machine or they want to increase their market share against other manufacturers.

They realize that used equipment is a starting point because every new equipment sale starts with a guy who already has a machine. So, that guy’s first question is, ‘What can you do for me with my old machine? I’ll buy your machine when you can help me get rid of this one.’ It’s just like cars. So these guys realize they have to get into the used equipment business to get those trade-ins out of the market and their new machines in there.

But then, the problem is that they still don’t have a viable used-equipment channel in China.  It’s very parochial, very immature, but the momentum is building and we believe we can get into that at the right time now as these manufacturers and dealers start realizing, ‘All right, I can take in a used machine, but it’s not easy just to sell it again.’ Our value-add is to give them a supply chain where it gets it out of their hands, it gets sold and they get that cash to sell again while also creating certainty of sale and certainty of disposal.