SEOUL, South Korea – It’s a strange thing to be reading about China’s continued crackdown on the Internet from our temporary perch in Seoul.

The last time I was here was in 1989.  The Pre-Internet Age.

This time, on my first visit in more than 20 years, South Korea owns the mantle of the world’s fastest Internet connection, according to a quarterly survey known as the State of the Internet by Akamai.  It's on average four times as fast as that of the U.S. 

But that just isn’t fast enough.

By the end of next year, the South Korean government plans to have every home in the nation hooked up to the Internet at a speed of one gigabit per second. Imagine being able to download the entire Godfather trilogy in 20 seconds.

/

A woman walks past the logo of Google in front of its headquarters in Beijing in this January 2011 file photo.

Gmail service, interrupted
In the meantime, over in China, land of the Great Firewall, reports are emerging that the download speed of Gmail has plunged.  We won’t get into the technicalities of kbps, but let’s just say Gmail is now operating 45 times slower than the most popular free Chinese instant messaging service known as QQ. 

The disruptions to Gmail don’t end there.  For weeks now, ordinary Gmail users have complained about interrupted service.  Writer Wang Lixiong tweeted that he received this message from Gmail when he tried to log in: “Your account is locked, because abnormal activities are detected.  You may have to wait 24 hours before you can log in again.”

Another user told my colleague Bo Gu that China Unicom appears to be blocking Gmail entirely from mobile devices.

And in the wake of calls for Jasmine rallies foreign journalists in China have been vigilant about attempts to hack into their email accounts. 

The disrupted service coincides with a surge in reported failures of several VPNs (virtual private networks), designed to circumvent China’s Internet firewall.

On Monday, Google accused the Chinese government of obstructing access to its Gmail service, saying the company had checked everything on its own end and concluded that the problems are the result of a “blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.” 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denied the accusation.

Speedy Internet = Open Internet
South Korea’s drive to lead the way globally in broadband access originated in the mid-1990s, but its efforts stepped up immediately after its economy was crippled by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.  And technology became a cornerstone of the government’s strategy to reboot and refashion its economy.

Seoul's approach to the Internet is instructive.  Although there are many reasons it has managed to power ahead of the pack, there is one that stands out in sharp relief against what’s happening in China: the open (and highly competitive) nature of its telecoms market.

“The idea behind an “open” system is essentially that, for a fee, broadband providers must share the cables that carry Internet signals into people’s homes,” says one report.  “Companies that build those lines typically oppose this sharing.  A number of governments, including South Korea and Japan and several European countries, have experimented with or embraced infrastructure-sharing as a way to get new companies to compete in the broadband market.”

China doesn’t allow that kind of openness—either in its infrastructure or in its content.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama walks behind Commerce Sec. Gary Locke, before announcing Locke's nomination to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, in the Diplomatic Room of the White House Wednesday.

BEIJING – The announcement that U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has been nominated for the soon to be vacated U.S. ambassadorship to China was met with mixed reaction here Thursday – discussion seemed to focus more on his ethnic qualifications than his professional ones.
 
Locke, a Chinese-American from Seattle, can trace his father’s roots to Taishan, a southern coastal city in China’s Guangdong province, where historically a majority of Chinese immigrants to America claim their origins from. That connection is not lost on the people of Taishan either. The official municipal website has a page dedicated to Locke in a section titled, “Taishan’s famous people.” 

This heritage and his command of Taishanes, his father’s Cantonese dialect, but not the more mainstream Mandarin – led to Locke being warmly feted on his many previous visits to China as a voice in the American government who understands China.

On Locke’s last two trips to Beijing and Tianjin, which NBC News covered, at times I had to fight through throngs of local reporters swarming him in order to keep up with his fast moving motorcade.

Outside of an American hardware store in Tianjin Locke was inspecting last spring, one rubbernecking local was surprised to hear about his ethnic heritage and proudly expressed his pleasure that a Chinese man had made it so high up in American administration.

‘An American with a Chinese face’
However, Locke’s Chinese ethnicity can also be seen as a knife that cuts both ways. Online posts slamming Locke as a “traitor” and a “foreign devil” quickly popped up on popular Chinese microblog web sites like Weibo.

A popular target of the negative voices is Locke’s inability to speak Mandarin Chinese, a common dig directed towards many Asian-Americans who find themselves in China. (Cantonese is the lingua franca of many overseas Chinese communities because so many people who left the country were historically from Guangdong province).

Among some of China’s elite, Locke’s nomination was seen as a generally positive development, but one that should be welcomed warily.

Luwei (Rose) Luqiu, the executive news editor of Phoenix Satellite Television, attempted to rein in the general exuberance, writing in her micro blog, “Don’t expect that Gary Locke will defend China. He is an American, an American with a Chinese face. He represents and defends the interest of the U.S. It’s not about blood; it’s about education and law.”  

This train of thought was picked up by Shi Yinhong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing, who warned that "one might say that since Locke is Chinese, he will be gentler in his handling of relations with China. However, no matter who actually serves as U.S. ambassador to China, they will always be working first for the United States.”

JASON REED / Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama poses with Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Zhou Wenzhong, left, and U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, right, at the Great Wall of China in Badaling in a November 18, 2009 file photo.

Apology for Huntsman?
Others viewed the Locke nomination as a tacit apology from Obama to the Chinese people over recent developments with outgoing ambassador, Jon Huntsman, whose resignation will come into effect on April 30, 2011.

Huntsman was recently spotted at the pre-selected protest zone in Beijing’s popular shopping street, Wangfujing, on what the U.S. embassy said was a coincidental “family outing.” Outraged Chinese quickly spotted Huntsman in his leather jacket with a prominent American flag sewn on the shoulder and his sizable security detail.

Many came to the conclusion that Huntsman – and by proxy, the American government – was actively involved in organizing and promoting so-called "Jasmine Revolution” demonstrations in China.

Soon after, Huntsman’s name joined a list of sensitive terms on the Internet in China that included Wangfujing, Jasmine, McDonalds and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

Zhou Shijian, a senior fellow at the Center for U.S.-China relations at Tsinghua University believes that Locke’s nomination is Obama’s way of apologizing to the Chinese government for Huntsman’s actions.

"To pick Gary Locke is a way for Obama to make amends," said Zhou, “He looks Chinese, but he is American and will represent the American government's interests."

Pundits both in China and the U.S. will certainly discuss the wisdom of Huntsman’s Wangfujing visit for some time. It may have in fact been an innocent family visit, but everyone – journalists, foreign diplomats and Chinese officials alike – all knew that the Jasmine protests were set to occur in Wangfujing. Surely somebody should have warned the ambassador, his family or his security detail that walking around there would not only be dangerous, but also potentially poisonous to the Sino-American relationship.

All of which raises additional uncomfortable questions: If Huntsman did know about the Jasmine protests planned, but went anyway, was his presence there meant to provide moral support to dissidents in China? Or was he perhaps angling for a photo-op with a bigger audience back home: an American electorate that he may now court if he runs for president in 2012.

Either way, given the controversy there is likely a strong push to expedite Locke’s nomination through Congress.

NBC News research Emily Ni contributed to this report.

By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent

SARASOTA, Fla. – Reporters meet interesting people, with interesting stories to share.
Malcolm Riddell's cautionary tale about Internet security is one we should all pause to listen to, as it could have been any one of us.

You can watch and listen to the strange confluence of internet wireless signals, child pornography and Pringles potato chips here.

But Riddell is more than a victim of an Internet crime.

He used to work as a spy for the CIA in China and throughout Asia. Today, he's an investment banker who advises on China.

He's no longer spying, and because of that, he feels the freedom to share his observations and thoughts on a country he says he fell in love with.

For good reason, Americans are watching China closely since its economy directly impacts us here (and everyone else around the world).

His insights offer a glimpse into a society, economy and leadership that is increasingly important to understand. Watch an interview with him below.

Bo Gu / NBC News

A snapshot of the website that sells fake hymens.

BEIJING – Despite the gradual liberalization of attitudes towards pre-marital sex in China, as well as rampant prostitution and Internet pornography – a woman’s virginity is still highly valued by many men here, especially in rural areas.

So what’s a girl trying to disguise her past sexual experience to do?

Pretend to be a virgin.

Search the words “artificial hymen” on Google in Chinese, and you’ll get seven million results. Search “Joan of Arc Red,” and you’ll get over a million results – it’s the biggest selling brand in China’s growing fake hymen market. 
 
Try to appear ‘shy’ for 'a better effect'
A young woman looking for a solution to her awkward problem can simply log onto the website www.xuexing.org and pay $18.40 for two fake hymens nicely packed in a wooden box.  For $14.40, the same products come simply wrapped in a paper box.

The website says the goods were first invented in Japan in 1993 and then became popular in Thailand, followed by the rest of Southeast Asia before eventually making their way to the Middle East.

According to the instructions, the little piece of semitransparent tissue has no side effects and is made of a natural fibrin glue, a medical elastic substance, a soluble base and carboxymethocel.

“After you put this into the vagina, it’ll dissolve and expand. Have sex in about 20 to 30 minutes, and you’ll ‘bleed’,” explains the instructions.  “A better effect will be reached if you appear to be shy and in pain.”

Circumventing tradition
I first learned about this product through an anonymous text message that read, “Joan of Arc Red, no surgery, no injections, no pain, and it will re-virginize you in just a few minutes.”  I logged onto the website, and an online service agent began chatting with me immediately.

Refusing to tell me how many packs they sell on a daily basis because, the agent said, it’s a business secret, he was frank about the vast market for their product.  “A lot of new graduates buy them before they get married,” he wrote. “So do some prostitutes who want to get a better price from their customers.”

A few decades ago, it was commonplace for husbands to expect to see tell-tale red marks on their wedding night. But despite the fact that China is much less conservative today than it used to be, many brides are still judged the same way.

Bo Gu / NBC News

A photo of "Joan of Arc Red" on the product's website.

Lian Yue, a well-known columnist with “Shanghai Weekly,” has been giving love advice for ten years. He says a large number of his befuddled male readers tell him about their disappointment when they find out their girlfriends have had sexual experiences before them.  He also hears quite often from women concerned about losing their virginity to Mr. Wrong.

“The Chinese women’s social status is still low, and some of the husbands value wives for having their hymens intact,” said Lian. “This doesn’t necessarily just exist in rural areas. Some urban people have the same idea.”

Reconstructive surgery is an option
If the woman is well-off and prefers a more secure camouflage, surgery is an option to make her feel like a true virgin again.

Li Weifan, deputy president of the Beijing Wuzhou Women’s Hospital, spoke to NBC News quite openly about the “hymen reconstruction” they offer as one of their plastic surgery services.

“Around 10 to 20 percent of our patients come here for plastic surgeries like liposuction or breast implant,” she said.  “Some girls – a lot them are newly graduated college students – regret their previous sex life and come here to regain their virginity before they get married.”

Li said the hospital schedules a few surgeries every month, and the patients’ recovery time is about one month. The surgeries cost from $450 to 1,000. Due to privacy issues and the fact that many of the surgeries are done in private clinics, there are no official statistics on how many re-virginization surgeries are performed in China annually. However women’s hospitals like Wuzhou have become popular in China with young, affluent women because they can enjoy better service and greater privacy than in public hospitals.

Although the fake hymen product instructions claim there are no side effects, gynecologists do warn that it could cause infections. Doctors also warn that surgery induced fake hymens could rupture if the girls engage in physical exercise like riding a bike.

Despite the risks, becoming a virgin in a few minutes is not just a dream in China.  The easy-to-operate fake hymens are also used by women in the Middle East, where pre-marital sex still has a strong social stigma.

In Syria, an artificial hymen can be bought for $15 on the black market by girls who can’t afford to have hymen reconstruction surgery performed in underground clinics.  In 2009, a prominent religious leader in Cairo called for severe punishment of any person who facilitates the sale of artificial hymens, deeming it an immoral and corrupt act.

“It’s really not necessary at all to fake being a virgin, unless you have been raped and this really provides some comfort,” said Wang Xiaoyuan, a young editor in the Beijing office of Bazaar magazine.  “Women have no duty to keep their virginity before getting married.  If my boyfriend had a virgin complex, I’d absolutely find another guy. I think in the name of no discrimination in China, the difference between male and female does not get the respect it deserves.”

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News File

Spot the women in China's last Communist Party Congress.

BEIJING—China’s lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), opened its annual session last weekend to great fanfare.  Watching the delegates pile in and out of the Great Hall of the People, we couldn’t help wondering: How is it that in a country of 1.3 billion, with nearly 3,000 NPC delegates, there are no women of national political prominence?

After all, Tuesday is International Women's Day, and China has a long history of strong women leaders. To name but a few: Empress Dowager Cixi, Empress Dowager Longyu, and of course two of the three Song sisters — Song Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen) and Song Meiling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek).

But the last time the leadership included a female official of note was Wu Yi, whom some Americans might remember as a formidable negotiator representing Chinese trade and economic interests until she retired as Vice Premier in 2008. Before Wu, the most recent government figure was the uber contemporary dragon-lady, Jiang Qing aka Madame Mao, who played an instrumental role in steering the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

So where are the Wu Yis or (gulp) Jiang Qings of today?

Women in numbers
An initial glance at some facts and figures appears to underscore significant progress in gender equality—at least in the government sphere. 

Women today in China account for 40 percent of government officials, compared to below 33 percent in 1995—which incidentally was the when the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing.

At least 21.3 percent of NPC delegates in 2008 were women (the latest available data, according to the All China Women’s Federation). In 1954, that figure was just 12 percent.

Impressive. But consider that the female proportion of NPC delegates has not significantly changed since the early 1970s, its been stuck around 21 percent since then.  

Women are even less well represented in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), making up fewer than 18 percent of the NPC’s main advisory body. 

The Communist Party fares about the same as the NPC itself.  Nearly 17 million of its members are women (as of the end of 2009), making up just 21.7 percent of overall Party membership.

In the top ranks?
Numbers for senior government positions seem less remarkable:

Adrienne Mong/NBC News File

Women supposedly hold up half the sky in China, but not inside the Great Hall of the People.

In China’s cabinet, the State Council, only three ministers out of the 28 ministries and commissions are women.

In China’s 656 cities, 670 mayors and vice-mayors are women.

Just 230 ministerial and vice-ministerial or provincial-level leaders are women, comprising roughly 10 percent of the overall total.

And the highest ranking woman in Chinese government today?

First State Councilor Liu Yandong, who is also the only female in the 25-person Politburo.  Liu’s official bio lists her past experience, but it’s unclear what exactly the Jiangsu native and Tsinghua University graduate does today in her role.

For most Chinese, at least the ones who’ve even heard of her, the only impression they have is, “She’s a woman, right?”

Update

For some indication of just how the Communist Party regards the issue of women in public office, take a look at the online version of one of its newspapers.  The People's Daily has, um, an interesting if somewhat retrograde take on the matter. One of the main photos on its cover shows a female reporter outside the meeting with the photo caption "Attractive female at NPC, CPPCC sessions."

With additional research from Emily Ni.

By Ed Flanagan and Adrienne Mong, NBC News

AP

Chinese police officers patrol Beijing's Xidan shopping district on March 6, 2011. Xidan was one of two sites in the capital designated as a protest zone by anonymous internet users.

BEIJING – Midway through a press conference ostensibly called to address the continued hostility towards foreign journalists attempting to cover China’s nascent – if at all existing – Jasmine Revolution, Li Xiaoming of Beijing’s Traffic Management Bureau asked the question he thought everybody in the room was dying to ask:

“I’m sure all of you might have this question in mind,” said Li matter-of-factly. “How can we make sure that the vehicles to be used by deputies and representatives [from this week’s National People’s Congress] are safe and smoothly running?”

Indeed.

Few reports of the press conference that was held at the Information Office of Beijing Municipality Sunday afternoon will probably note this, but the entire opening statement had nothing to do with China’s crackdown on dissidents and press freedoms for foreign journalists and everything to do with the great lengths the traffic bureau had gone to ease traffic conditions and foster a “harmonious driving culture” in the capital.

Journalists present were forced to sit through a long list of traffic accomplishments and new municipal initiatives before they were allowed to ask the questions everybody really wanted answers to. Namely, what was wrong with reporting the Jasmine Revolution? What are the new restrictions that Beijing has placed on reporting in the capital? And would Chinese security agents continue to obstruct reporting by foreign journalists?

With regard to the former, Beijing city government spokeswoman, Wang Hui, confidently squashed the question, declaring that attempts to call for protests like the ones seen in the Middle East and Africa were “doomed to fail.”

"Cool-headed people know that these people have chosen the wrong place, and their ideas and plans are wrong," said Wang, "In Beijing, we have had and will have no such incidents."

Wang continued, noting, "Over the past 30 years or more, China's success and economic progress have been broadly recognized. The Communist Party's leadership and government's policies are in line with the people's will and their hearts."

The only hint that the local journalists assembled may have had a differing opinion of Wang’s statement came from the first question of the press conference by a Xinhua reporter referencing reports that came out late last week that Beijing was considering using people’s mobile phone signals to track their movements.

The announcement stirred deep privacy concerns in China. And while Wang suggested that Beijing was merely studying a proposal to utilize such technology, the fact that Li of the Traffic Bureau had earlier boasted of such technology was perhaps a not-so-tacit reminder to those would-be protestors that the technology was indeed at the government’s disposal to monitor not just political dissidents, but foreign reporters as well.

Wang was also quick to rebuff requests for clarification of the rules governing journalists operating in busy areas around town. He expressed frustration at repeated questions about the new restrictions put in place.

“I myself believe this [the requirements for interviewing in Beijing] is quite easy to understand,” said Wang, ”So we find this very perplexing why some foreign correspondents find this difficult to understand.”

Wang seemingly answered her own question when she later suggested that some foreign journalists in China were intent on creating the news instead of reporting it.

In response to a statement by one foreign reporter that their role in China was merely to report events as they happen, Wang said, “Just now you said foreign correspondents are not here to generate news, I cannot disagree more.”

Such an assertion had no basis in truth in western Beijing’s Xidan shopping district Monday, though, where calls for further protests there were belied by throngs of shoppers taking in the balmier weather. It was impossible to tell who was browsing and who was strolling in support of the so-called Jasmine rallies.

But it was easy to spot the security forces.  The number of uniform police didn’t seem as large as those we saw last Sunday in Wangfujing, but there were many, many more plainclothes officers. Typically sporting sneakers and leather jackets with earpieces, they stood mostly on their own — not in groups as they were last week.  Several were carrying video cameras, which again last week were used to film foreign journalists on the scene.

Western journalists who wandered through the neighborhood were stopped immediately and checked for IDs.  Most were told politely to leave the area.

Combative as Wang’s statements and Beijing’s actions in Xidan today were, they were perhaps the clearest reflection of Beijing’s current perception of foreign reporters here in China so far. Whether time will heal this presently strained relationship remains to be seen, but in the meantime it is safe to say that the level of mistrust being exhibited by China’s governing party towards the foreign press corps has not been seen in quite some time.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

A Dai farmer in Yunnan.

BEIJING — We were on the road this past week so had been following from afar all the reports of the continued Chinese government crackdown.

Ever since an anonymous call for the Jasmine rallies surfaced on the Internet in the days leading up to Sunday, February 20th, the authorities have tightened up their monitoring of microblogs and other online discussions as well as rounded up dissidents, activists, and lawyers.

Based on the news coming out of Beijing and Shanghai — where the crackdown has been intently felt by foreign journalists — China appeared to be turning the clock back to a much more repressive time when paranoia seemed to reign.

But in the hinterlands of Inner Mongolia in the far north or Yunnan towards the southwestern border with Myanmar, where we had been travelling this week, it was a different China.   One that seemed to be still opening up to the outside world and busy with modernizing.

It was the country that gave credence to arguments that China is not like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, or any of the other nations in the grip of anti-government turmoil.

A place, for instance, where farmers, enabled by local government to grow cash crops, have seen their living standards improve immeasurably in the past ten years.  Where an agronomist who grew up in Burundi and came to China six years ago marvelled at the paved roads that allowed him to make regular visits to farmers—something that along with the cell phone coverage, clean running water supply, electricity, and Internet access was simply unimaginable where he was last working, in Tanzania.

A place where farmers were more interested in using their cell phones and the Internet to keep track of international commodity prices like rubber than to participate in dissent.

A place where the word “jasmine” means nothing but tea to the local villagers.

As ever, it was sobering and inspiring to see people whose idea of a better life meant being able to earn enough money to buy a refrigerator or a motorbike or, in one instance, a new 4x4.

But then back in Beijing, within an hour of walking back through my front door from the airport, two local police officers stopped by unannounced at 10:20 p.m. 

As they have been doing all week, they were checking up on everyone’s paperwork, and they took the time to remind me—as a foreign journalist — to follow Chinese law and regulations.  A place that is reverting to type as a police state.

And this was still the China that also failed to look after its own people. One report this morning recounted a typical encounter between petitioners coming to the capital to lobby for their interests and the security forces engaging in ham-fisted bullying.

A place where, according to state-run media, 739,000 security personnel have been deployed across Beijing — many of whom were on alert at the city's two main sites designated by the anonymous people or group urging for the Jasmine rallies.