By Adrienne Mong and Bo Gu

BEIJING--It's the kind of disaster that provokes deep sorrow, anger, and the shaking of heads.

Barely a month after China launched its much-vaunted Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link, two so-called bullet trains collided near the eastern city of Wenzhou, south of Shanghai, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more.

The trains that crashed are technically not part of the high-speed rail network that China has been aggressively building out across the country, but they are said to be the first generation of high-speed technology adopted by the Chinese.

Philippe Lopez / AFP - Getty Images

Chen Shengqiao, who lost his 12-year-old daughter Chen Yijie in the train accident, is helped by relatives as he cries after identifying her body at a crematorium in the town of Shuangyu on July 25.

It’s still unclear what exactly happened, but most reports say lightning struck a train travelling from Hangzhou to Fuzhou.  The train lost power and stalled on the tracks.  A second train travelling in the same direction then hit the first train from behind, causing two cars from the first train and four cars from the second to derail.  Two of the cars fell off the bridge, leaving a third dangling in the air

Although many people were horrified by the tragedy and the dramatic pictures, anger quickly set in.

“We are all passengers”

Widespread dissatisfaction and complaints were already brewing online days after the launch of the new Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link.  In at least three separate suspensions of service just after its opening, several new trains were delayed due to poor weather, leaving passengers stuck on trains for hours without air conditioning after the power was shut down.

Saturday’s collision only fuelled simmering anger.  Very soon after the crash, Chinese Internet users found a link to a 2007 interview quoting He Huawu, a chief engineer from the Railways Ministry, “Our high speed train will not collide, because of our safety design.”  Zhang Shuguang, another chief engineer who appeared in the same 2007 report, was just suspended this year as part of a corruption investigation.

“This is a big slap on your own face,” said one new comment on the article. 

“Thunder makes two trains collide.  A truck drives past a bridge, then the bridge collapses.  You get kidney stones by drinking milk.  None of us is exempted.  Today’s China is a train running in the thunderstorm, and we are not outsiders.  We are all passengers,” said one Chinese comment on Twitter.

Burying the train car that crashed into the first train triggered another wave of anger.  Michael Anti, a well-known blogger and news critic, said on his Twitter page, “I have never seen this.  Yesterday, the train was derailed, today the compartments are buried.  Every time there is a plane or train crash, the debris is usually collected and checked to find the cause.  Is the Ministry of Railways going nuts?”

His remarks were re-Tweeted many times over, with more people expressing shock and demanding to know why the car was buried.  In response, a Ministry spokesman, Wang Yongping, explained Monday morning that the crash site’s geography was the reason for the burial, that mud under the bridge made it difficult to retrieve the train car.

But Chinese netizens were angry, too, at the disrespect shown to the dead and injured.  “Can’t you just gather the passengers’ belongings and wait for their relatives to collect them instead of just burying them?  There may be clothes they bought together, pictures they took when they travelled together.  In the cell phones, there may be text messages they didn’t want to delete, video to record their lives, or even the last words they said before they died!” said another Internet user on Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter.

AP

A wrecked passenger carriage is lifted off the bridge on July 24.

The cost of speed

The crash also reinforced scepticism about recent Chinese claims that the country is producing the best rail technology.

Two days before Saturday’s crash, the state-run People’s Daily newspaper rebutted criticism of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link crowing about its superior technology.

A Chinese Railways Ministry spokesman went even further, claiming his country’s high-speed rail technology was far better than that of Japan’s bullet trains or shinkansen.

In the aftermath of the crash, some Chinese reports suggested an about-face, pointedly saying the trains involved in the collision were not of original Chinese design but the result of joint ventures with Japanese and Canadian rail companies.

In Japan, where the shinkansen network has run for 47 years with a near-perfect safety record, local newspapers leapt into the fray.

“The fear that [the] Chinese high-speed rail system may be dangerous has become a reality,” said the Asahi Shimbun.  “The essential technology was not something they themselves had developed over many years, but instead collected from various countries which some pointed out was susceptible to causing troubles.”

While many Chinese reacted cynically—one person on Twitter swore never to fly on any Chinese-built planes—the rest of the world would be justified in worrying, too.

As our colleague, Ed Flanagan, has pointed out, this is the same country that has built a bridge that was just shipped off to Oakland to be used in an earthquake-prone region. 

With additional reporting from Arata Yamamoto in Tokyo.

BEIJING –With one final press conference in Shanghai, Yao Ming officially retired from basketball, ending weeks of testimonials and news reports fondly recapping his NBA rise and impact on the game.

Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo

NBA star Yao Ming waves to guests during a press conference in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, July 20, 2011. Yao announced his retirement to a packed room of Chinese and foreign journalists.

In coverage fit for a Chinese state leader, Yao’s entire retirement speech was posted on China Daily’s website soon after the announcement earlier today and China’s state television broadcaster, CCTV, was said to be planning five continuous hours of coverage on the eight-time all-star’s decision to formally end his career.

Five hours of coverage is indeed ambitious, but where does one start when synthesizing Yao’s basketball legacy and global influence into one storyline? Yao himself probably did it best during his press conference when he referred to himself as an “historian,” an apt description for a man whose ascension to the top of the basketball world coincided with China’s own meteoric economic rise.

But reading through the heaps of reporting, it is clear that the meaning of Yao’s career is truly in the eye of the beholder. In Chinese newspapers like the nationalistic Global Times, Yao was described glowingly as a “Chinese image ambassador,” who “contributed immensely to the development of the NBA in China, making millions of Chinese care for the game.”

That Yao did all of this for nine seasons while never shunning his higher responsibilities to the Chinese national team is precisely the type of lesson that the Global Times felt that his legacy should bring to Yao’s successors.

Others wonder whether Yao’s legacy is the starting point for an ongoing debate here over why China has been unsuccessful in developing other NBA stars in the years following his being drafted first overall in the 2002 NBA Draft.

Did Chinese basketball get complacent after Yao became the country’s first global superstar? That is the question an excellent article in the New York Times posed earlier this week on Chinese basketball’s squandered opportunities to use Yao’s popularity to install the grassroots programs so badly needed to allow NBA-worthy talent to blossom.

What has resulted is another manifestation of the old debate here in China: opening up athletes’ training to private development versus the status quo of the guiding hand of the all-encompassing state institutions.

As we have seen with tennis superstar Li Na – another early product of China’s state sports system who broke away – the policy of letting athletes “fly alone” and plan their own career paths is certainly making headway here. However, it will likely face long-term resistance from a risk-adverse state institution, especially one that faces added pressure to perform on the world stage after achieving such success at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Market penetration
What is not in question is the interest that Yao’s career sparked on both sides of the Pacific. American fans quickly warmed to the 7’6” center who was charming – if limited in his English skills – and affable, often showing a comedic touch that made him a hit with advertisers like Apple, McDonalds and Visa, who all rushed to sign him to endorsement deals (see Visa commercial below).

Chinese endorsement agreements with the likes of China Telecom were also quick to follow, but what was far more astonishing was how quickly the NBA took off in China once Yao took his talents to Houston. It is said today that there are 300 million NBA fans in China, but ones does not need to spend much time here to know how ubiquitous the league has become.

Basketball courts have sprung up all over the mainland, while the streets of Chinese cities are lined with young fans decked out in the jerseys of their favorite NBA heroes. Sprite and Pepsi cans often have NBA players plastered on them, and in the years leading up to the Olympics in 2008, it was difficult not to walk by a McDonalds that did not have at least one Yao Ming cutout draped with Chinese fans happily mugging for a camera.

Bill Baptist - NBAE/Getty Images

Yao Ming averaged 19 points and 9.2 rebounds a game during a 9 season NBA career with the Houston Rockets.

No surprise then that Yao’s personal brand valued at $1 billion regularly tops lists that measure the value of sports celebrities and their international appeal.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Yao’s career has been a financial windfall for the NBA, making the organization truly one of the great success stories of American business in China. Few U.S. companies or industries can boast to the degree that the NBA can about its success in China. Similarly, few companies can point to the transformative effect that China has had on the way it does business.

In addition to Chinese advertisements now being a regular presence on the sidelines of NBA courts all over the United States, the NBA’s Chinese language website is said to get on average 12 million hits a day. Meanwhile, the NBA’s players have taken notice.

In greater numbers now, American players are turning their backs on shoe giants like Nike and Adidas and signing lucrative endorsement deals with Chinese apparel companies. To stay connected to Chinese fans during the season, players like Tracy McGrady, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant have taken to maintaining Sina Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) accounts. During the off-season, players ranging in ability from NBA superstars to fringe starters have become regular fixtures in China during the NBA off-season, offering training camps, promotional tours and in some cases – most notably Stephon Marbury – agreeing to eventually play here.

Despite their successes in spurring the NBA forward, American players will now need to ride out the inevitable next step in the game’s development in China: the Post-Yao Age.  Even before Yao’s press conference today, there were concerns that NBA interest in China may wane. An AP article published last week cited an online poll on Weibo that showed 57 percent of respondents would no longer continue watching the NBA after Yao’s retirement.  

Further clouding the future of the league in China is the murky status of labor negotiations between the NBA and the Players Association, which are reportedly scheduled to meet this Friday but remain far apart on revenue sharing.

But even on this divisive issue, China’s rise as a primary market for the NBA is apparent. As the Players Association urges its members to look abroad for playing offers, many athletes have turned to China despite more competitive leagues being available in Europe.

Players such as the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard and the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and Dorell Wright have all expressed interest in playing in China should the NBA season not begin as scheduled. Kobe Bryant himself, already in Shanghai for a skills camp he runs, has come out in recent weeks with preliminary plans for an all-star studded three city China tour that would last between two and three weeks.

Over the years, basketball pundits have described Yao as a “finesse player” who had trouble banging inside with the big men of the NBA. Ironic then that his efforts have pushed talented NBA scorers out of their comfort zones to his home turf.

Related link:

Yao Ming walks away from NBA, makes retirement official

By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

BEIJING – On his first trip to China in 2009, President Obama pledged to significantly expand the number of American students studying on the mainland as part of what has been dubbed the “100,000 Strong Initiative.”

Making such an ambitious pledge a reality during such dire economic times can be problematic, especially for students from one of America’s most infamously low-income areas: Crenshaw, Los Angeles.

Our colleagues at “Morning Joe” though switched us on to a great story last week about students from Crenshaw High School coming to China on Thursday as ambassadors for Los Angeles. The students will work with their academic peers from Beijing’s Renmin University to teach them about African-American culture, while also learning first-hand about the global economy.

The exchange program is similar program to countless others, but this group has one amazing ace-in-the-hole: also traveling in the group is one of the world’s most celebrated gospel choirs, the Crenshaw High School Choir.

The trip was organized by the Los Angeles Urban League through its Neighborhoods@Work initiative. The program helps foster student leadership at Crenshaw High School and was the pool from which students were selected for the “Crenshaw2China” cultural exchange program.

Students selected for that program were placed in a ten-week course to prepare them for their primary role as teachers and ambassadors of African-American history and culture. They were also given lessons in Mandarin and Chinese culture to better equip them for any culture shock.

Perhaps more intriguing was how the Crenshaw High choir secured its berth to China. After the choir made an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show on June 10, host Mika Brzezinski began poking around seeking someone to sponsor the choir on the trip.

Hal Rosenbluth, a former executive at Walgreens, quickly stepped up to sponsor the trip and with that the mad dash to secure visas, flights and accommodations for the dozens of students in the choir began in earnest.

Explaining his motivations behind the donation, Rosenbluth spoke of a desire to improve inner-city educational opportunities through global experiences, saying, “I think it’s so important in this global economy that we live in, they [the students] see not only what their future competitors are going to be here in the United States and what they need to be successful, but also in China.”

“You know, it’s a country that I think will open their eyes and will help them compare and contrast and it will be great for their overall education,” Rosenbluth said on Morning Joe.

It will certainly be a long way from the coast of Los Angeles, a sight that the choir’s director, Ira Stephenson, noted many in her choir had never even seen before until recently.

“We took a field trip to Pacific Palisades and we were taking the 10 Freeway right to the Pacific Ocean and everybody stopped talking,” recalled Stephenson. “They saw the beauty of the ocean and they just stopped talking. It just stopped their conversation all the way… So this is a great opportunity for us to be able to go beyond the Pacific Ocean, but over to China.”

Surprisingly, this is not the first time Crenshaw’s choir has come to China. In 2006, the choir was selected to represent the United States at the World Choir Games in Xiamen where they won gold in the “Gospel and Spiritual” category and silver medals in both “Scenic Folklore” and “Jazz.”

On this trip, the choir will be traveling to Beijing and Shanghai. There are currently no details yet on where the choir will be performing, but Stephenson has one performance already in mind:

“We’re going to Beijing and so while we’re on tour in Beijing we’re going to not only go to the Great Wall of China, we plan on singing!”

How Hwee Young / EPA

Members of the USA synchronised swimming team train ahead of the FINA Swimming World Championships at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai, China on Wednesday.

By NBC News’ Ed Flanagan

BEIJING – Part of the fun of being a world-class athlete traveling to foreign cities is the chance to go out and sample the local fare.

Not so this year for the over 2,000 athletes from at least 181 countries in Shanghai to compete in the 14th FINA World Aquatics Championships.

There will be no pork dumplings, pork lo mein or even beef with broccoli for the swimmers, divers and water polo players.

That’s because Chinese beef and pork have been linked to steroid use in cattle and pigs, and a recent study conducted by a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited lab in Cologne, Germany, discovered that 22 out of 28 travelers returning from China tested positive for clenbuterol, an anabolic agent that builds muscle and burns fat.

The chemical additives are used by Chinese farmers on cattle and pigs in order to speed up animal growth and promote the development of lean meat in them.

But clenbuterol is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances and comes with a ban of up to two years for athletes who test positive for it.

The hard evidence from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s report is a damning indictment of Chinese food standards at a time when the government has been dealing with a rash of food safety issues all over the country.

Eugene Hoshiko / AP

The Brazilian synchronized swimming team practices Wednesday at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center ahead of the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships, which start from July 16.

In an effort to allay the concerns of nervous consumers, government officials have tacitly allowed China’s news media this year to be more proactive in sniffing out and exposing food scandals throughout the country. To its credit, the government’s move has been a welcomed development in the way China handles food safety concerns, but it also reveals just how much work still needs to be done to improve standards.

Meanwhile, Shanghai city officials will face an uphill battle in convincing athletes and visitors alike that China’s kitchens are safe.

Some high-profile athletes won’t be alarmed by the recent revelations, such as Michael Phelps, who is returning to China – the site of his record-setting eight gold medal run in 2008 – to compete after a lackluster start in his bid to return to glory in the 2012 London Olympics.

Like in Beijing in 2008, better funded teams such as the United States and Australia were taking a page from their 2008 playbooks and sourcing meat and other food products from abroad. The chefs, though, will have to load up their refrigerators – his typical 12,000-calorie daily intake was famously described and even self-lampooned on “Saturday Night Live.”

Athletes from other countries, though, will likely find themselves scrutinizing the food supplied by their hotels and certainly avoiding local restaurants as much as possible.

The stories of Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Adam Seroczynski will ensure that.

Ovtcharov, a German table tennis player competed at a tournament in China last year and nearly faced a ban when he tested positive for clenbuterol. He was saved only when his claim that contaminated food from his hotel had been responsible for the positive test was corroborated by similar results in four other German players who had also competed there.

Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski was not so lucky. He also argued that contaminated meat had been at the heart of his positive test at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. His claims were rejected and he was later slapped with a two-year ban.

By NBC News’ Ed Flanagan

BEIJING – “We notice that the United States engaged in the joint military exercises with countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. We Chinese people treat this as interference in China’s relationship with neighboring countries and I think this is not conducive to security and stability in Asia, so I’m wondering how you would comment on this?”

And with that opening gauntlet, so began a 45-minute grilling of America’s top military officer, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.

Mullen, who is leading a 39-member* delegation on a four-day tour of China, stopped at Beijing’s Renmin University Sunday to talk with 150 students hand-picked by college officials.

The stakes were high for the admiral, as his visit represents the first high-level military visit to China by a U.S. military official since Secretary of Defense Robert Gates came in January. The trip follows what has been considered a successful visit in May to the United States by Admiral Mullen’s Chinese counterpart in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Chief of the General Staff Chen Bingde.

The students’ questions – likely screened in advance of the Q&A – were a veritable roll call of recent and long-standing grievances the Chinese have had with the United States: continued arms sales to Taiwan, presumed meddling in the South China Sea, China’s military development and the ongoing U.S. embargo on military weapons sales to the mainland, cyber warfare and the negative stance some U.S. politicians have taken toward China.   

It was perhaps no surprise then when it came out that those issues were the primary topics of discussion in high-level talks between Adm. Mullen and Chen Bingde on Monday.

For his part, Mullen gamely walked a fine line with the students. Facing the unenviable task of reaffirming American engagement in the region at a time when China is consolidating its own power here, he quickly followed up statements declaring America’s commitment to Asia with others that trumpeted China’s rise to the world stage.

“Now, more than ever, the U.S. is a Pacific nation. It is clear that our military interests and economic well-being are tied to Asia,” said Mullen before later adding, “The U.S. wants a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship with China.”

Mullen continued by saying, “China today is a different country than it was 10 years ago, and it certainly will continue to change over the next 10 years… It is no longer a rising power. It has, in fact, arrived as a world power."

Mullen was cordial and respectful throughout his talk, but he did not back down from what have become almost regular calls by American defense officials for greater transparency within the People’s Liberation Army.

"With greater military power must come greater responsibility, greater cooperation, and just as important, greater transparency," Mullen said before warning, "without these things, the expansion of military power in your region, rather than making it more secure and stable, could have the opposite effect."

Officially, China’s defense budget for 2011 is said to be around $93 billion, a 12.7 percent increase over 2010. Many military expects though believe that this number is vastly underreported.

Change in tone noticeable
If the questions themselves were not unexpected, the tone with which the questions were asked were noticeably more direct than in previous similar town hall style meetings.

In 2009 when President Barack Obama held a town hall Q&A with students in Shanghai, a question on American weapons sales to Taiwan was posed to Mr. Obama:

“I come from Taiwan. Now I am doing business on the mainland. And due to improved cross-straits relations in recent years, my business in China is doing quite well. So when I heard the news that some people in America would like to propose – continue selling arms and weapons to Taiwan, I begin to get pretty worried. I worry that this may make our cross-straits relations suffer. So I would like to know if, Mr. President, are you supportive of improved cross-straits relations? And although this question is from a businessman, actually, it's a question of keen concern to all of us young Chinese students, so we'd really like to know your position on this question. Thank you.”

Compare that phrasing to a similar question posed by a foreign language student Sunday to Mullen:

“As we know, the United States keeps selling advanced weapons to Taiwan and I think this goes against the regional stability and security you were talking about. As we have noticed, some U.S. Congressmen have questioned the legitimacy of arms sales to Taiwan, so my question is when will the United States stop selling advanced weapons to Taiwan?”

The directness of the question drew applause and some giggles from the assembled students. Mullen gave a similar response to the one Obama gave in 2009: he reaffirmed the United States’ continued support of the one-China policy, but said that arms sales to Taiwan are permitted by U.S. law.

Mullen’s response in particular to charges that American congressmen have questioned the need for Taiwan arms sales appeared to resonate with students as well when he noted, “there are 535 members of my congress and often times there are that many views on a variety of subjects.”

Responsible regional partners
Throughout his trip to China so far, Mullen’s mantra has been that it is time for a major power like China to be a responsible partner in regional issues. In particular, the maintaining of free waterways for commerce, greater transparency within the People’s Liberation Army and the peaceful mediation of territorial issues like the Spratly Islands – a 1.3-million-square-mile patch of the Pacific Ocean claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan – are clear sources of American concern.

However, these calls by the United States have been received with a perception that the U.S. may be “blaming” China for its role in recent diplomatic and military flare ups in the region. Furthermore, there is seeming frustration here that the United States appears intent on framing China’s new regional responsibilities rather than allowing China to define them for itself.

Once again, it would appear that the United States and China are at loggerheads on an issue with no immediate resolution in sight. Mullen’s visit gives hope though that while differences and suspicions remain, the two parties are at least willing again to meet and talk it out.

*Correction: This post incorrectly stated that Admiral Mullen's China delegation consisted of 39 members. The correct number was 22.

By Ed Flanagan, NBC News Producer

BEIJING – The condemnation in the United States that followed the news that Cisco Systems was close to finalizing a deal with the city of Chongqing to assist in the installation of “Peaceful Chongqing,” a vast new municipal surveillance system was not surprising and was likely anticipated by company officials. 
 
Probably less expected was the flak Cisco has gotten from China’s state-run media.

Cisco’s sale is limited in scope by U.S. law, a holdover from legislation passed by Congress following the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations which banned American companies from selling crime-control products to China.

To work around those restrictions, companies like Cisco and Hewlett Packard have instead been invited by Chongqing officials to sell networking and server equipment to manage the estimated 500,000 cameras the program is expected to install over nearly 400 square miles, according to a Wall Street Journal report on the project.

Critics in the West were quick to point out that these companies were taking advantage of a loophole in the law by focusing on the traffic-control aspects of their bid and turning a blind eye to the system’s other possible applications, such as the surveillance and suppression of political dissenters.

But after positive news reports in the Chinese press touting the traffic management and crime prevention aspects of the “Peaceful Chongqing” program, it was surprising to see local media turn on Cisco’s involvement in the project.

Suspicions about American-made surveillance
Yesterday’s Global Times – China’s reliably nationalistic, government-run newspaper – argued in its Chinese edition that rather than the potential threat of the government employing this proposed surveillance system to nefariously suppress political will, people should be more concerned about the ramifications of using American systems to monitor Chinese cities.

“It should be the Chinese who need to arouse vigilance when American-made security monitors are installed in a Chinese city,” one article in the Chinese version of the Global Times wrote. “If New York or Los Angeles installed China-made security monitors, American congressmen would surely protest.”

The article added, “The Chinese should stay assertive and confident in business fights as well as opinion fights with the U.S., where the U.S. has always occupied the advantageous position.”

That sentiment was echoed on the Global Times’ English edition, which has often been a more moderate voice in its coverage of international events compared to its Chinese-language sibling. Nevertheless, in an editorial Thursday, the newspaper claimed that “things are upside down here,” and argued that surveillance video from Chongqing could one day be of important national security. Why then should a foreign company, especially one “from a not so friendly country” be relied on to handle such a project?

“The U.S. has been teaching us lessons that there should be no neglect concerning national security,” continued the editorial, “by this token, we should call for the Chongqing authorities to use domestic surveillance cameras only.”

Why go outside ‘indigenously developed’ technology?
In recent years, China has been gobbling up the press with high-profile debuts of “indigenously developed” technology such as their J-20 stealth fighter and most recently, the high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Yet, why Chinese officials turned to American companies for assistance with the “Peaceful Chongqing” project as opposed to one of China’s most successful so-called “national champions” is certainly an interesting question.

Surely a company like Huawei, which is China’s largest networking and telecommunications equipment supplier, could have provided much of the expertise and technology required to manage such a project. Awarding the bid to Huawei would also have satisfied the Chinese government’s desire to foster “indigenous innovation,” a principle so near and dear to officials here that proposed laws introduced last year would have strong-armed many American companies into forced technology transfers as a cost for entry into the China market.

China’s overtures to Cisco could be another game attempt at improving the country’s security apparatus through forced technology transfer. Perhaps more cynically, China’s willingness to deal with American companies could also be seen as a preventative move to silence human rights critics in the West. After all, it is harder for the U.S. to claim the moral high ground when American companies and technology are powering supposed human rights violations.

Whatever the motivations, it’s surely not the last we’ll hear about any of this from both sides of the Pacific.

By NBC’s LisAurel Winfree 

BEIJING – Wanted: A Westerner who can pretend to speak intelligently about a subject they know nothing about. No experience needed. Will pay.

What?

That’s right. Welcome to the Chinese concept of a “face job.”

In China, a face job is when a company hires a white person to pretend to be an employee or business partner, usually for an important event or meeting.

Westerners are thought to be rich – so Chinese companies will often hire one to appear at meetings or events so they can give the impression that they have wealthy overseas connections, status and prestige. 

I encountered my first face job at a press conference recently held by the World Luxury Association at a five-star hotel in Beijing’s well-heeled Chaoyang district.

The event featured a series of talks about different aspects of China’s luxury market and covered subjects ranging from how to increase brand awareness to the sale of jewelry and yachts. There was a long list of Western speakers available as experts to discuss their various industries and they seemed like the people to talk to – cameramen swarmed around them and Chinese journalists shoved microphones at them.

But their speeches were vague and barely scratched the surface of the topics they were presenting. Perhaps they were trying to keep things simple because of the language barrier? Perhaps some further questioning would yield something more interesting?

When the opportunity arose, I ran up to talk to one of the Western speakers. He introduced himself as “Jake.” I asked him a question about the luxury market. At first, he looked confused, and then he started to laugh. “I don’t work for this company,” he confessed. “They hired me just for today.” 

He went on to explain why he believed he’d been hired. “They had government officials [at the conference] that morning. My guess is that they’re probably trying to get some kind of distribution deal. They’re probably trying to legitimize themselves. If you buy into it – that could give the business a lot of legitimacy.”

Jake said that there seemed to be a lot riding on his appearance. He said after he’d agreed to go to the event, “They kept asking, ‘Are you gonna come? Because it will be embarrassing if you don’t.’”

It turns out that four of the foreign speakers at the event were hired as face jobs. It’s a fairly common experience for many expats looking to make some extra money. Much like acting, the hiring company will provide a set and script, complete with business cards.
One of the speakers at the event had been in Harbin the week before at a hospital, pretending to be a doctor to introduce a new medicine.

“I think you can learn a little bit about the culture,” Jake said about the job. “I had a friend when we were studying. He used to go to business meetings and pretend to be a CEO, put his hands on the table and pretend to be angry.”

But sometimes Westerners find that they’ve accidentally become a face job. Before arriving at the WLA event, Jake thought he was being hired to give a talk at a finance conference, according to the online advertisement he’d answered.

“I would never wanna do anything like this again. To give a speech or be fraudulent, no I would not wanna do anything like that. For me, someone who wants to make a career in China, it’s just bad.”

KUNMING, YUNNAN PROVINCE--Although military-to-military relations between China and the U.S. appear to be back on track, they've been frosty for almost two years after a U.S. arms deal with Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of China. 

But there is one realm where military cooperation has endured without hiccup for half a century.

"This is a way of preserving a symbol of friendship between our two countries," said Major Li Xin of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Major Li heads a special unit training China's furtive flyers in the Chengdu Military Region.

No, not the J-20.

It's another kind of stealth fighter.

"This is the last military pigeon unit left in all of the People’s Liberation Army,” said Major Li.

Yes, pigeons

The unit is stationed on a PLA base near Kunming, where there were once many more such units, all set up in 1957 as part of a contingency plan in case communications were cut off.

On the base, 600 "jun ge," or military pigeons, are trained to be couriers able to carry messages in case of an emergency or a natural disaster such as a quake knocks out cell phone signals or the Internet.

Adrienne Mong

Pigeon conscripts go through training every day.

Every day, the pigeons are put through their paces.

Well, almost all.

When they were released from the coop for a daily flyover, all but four of the birds took flight immediately.

The four delinquents opted to park themselves on a ledge of the building next door. 

“If those four pigeons are too lazy to train, they might be discharged from the army,” a PLA major deadpanned to the NBC News camera.

The birds can fly up to 60 miles an hour for long sustained periods, and the ones that make it past the initial tests are smart enough to dodge hawks. 

One pigeon, in fact, flew from Shanghai to Kunming—a distance of 1,336 miles—in roughly nine days.  That was back in 1982.  His body has been embalmed and sits in a display case.

Their natural homing instinct makes these birds perfect for their mission.  “The pigeons are prized for their ability to be trained, their pace, and their reliability,” said Major Li.

They’re also valued for their pedigree.

Adrienne Mong

Conscripts of the PLA's Special Military Pigeon Unit prepare for training.

A little help from an old ally

“These are American pigeons,” said Chen Wenguang, who founded the special military pigeon unit.  He remains, even at the spry age of 82, an avid pigeon aficionado who given any opportunity happily launches into a long discourse about the health and abilities of each pigeon breed.

The birds in the PLA unit are descended from a batch brought over from the U.S. by the Flying Tigers, a voluntary group that helped the Chinese fight the Japanese on China’s western front during World War Two.

The group was part of the Chinese Air Force and comprised mostly American pilots and ground crews; it was commanded by General Claire Lee Chennault, also an American.

The Flying Tigers was instrumental in ongoing efforts to defend the Burma Road, a critical supply route, in 1941.  Burma was eventually lost to the Japanese, and the Flying Tigers were disbanded in 1942.

Adrienne Mong

A memorial in Kunming honoring the Flying Tigers of World War Two.

The corps was reactivated within the U.S. 14^th Air Force, once again under the command of Gen. Chennault.  From 1942 to 1945, the Flying Tigers flew cargo for the Chinese across the Hump (the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains nestled in the region of India, Burma, and China), which had more or less replaced the Burma Road as a supply route—one that was far more dangerous, especially without reliable charts, weather forecasts, or functioning radio instruments.

But it was a great success, bringing Chinese and American pilots and other military personnel together.

Our PLA hosts were ready to note this old alliance at every opportunity. 

“The real reason we keep these pigeons is they’re part of history,” said Col. Qing Nianlong, the commanding officer of the PLA communications garrison unit of Kunming.  

It’s rare that the PLA engages with foreign institutions, let alone foreign journalists.  But the invitation to visit their pigeon unit suggests there’s a growing awareness within the PLA of the potential upside to being media-friendly.

Now if we could just get up close and personal with that J-20.

Adrienne Mong

Statues of the Long March survivors greet visitors inside the Yan'an Revolution Museum.

YAN’AN, Shaanxi Province—It’s known as the cradle of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

A sleepy city of two million that is regularly overrun by millions of visitors paying homage to the CPC’s founding fathers, Yan’an is near the final destination of the legendary Long March the Communists undertook from late 1934 to late 1935 to escape the tightening grip of the Nationalist Party and its army.

It was here that Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and thousands of other CPC members made Yan’an their Central Committee headquarters from 1937 to 1947.

And in recent months, it’s been THE place to visit.

“We’re here to pay tribute to the Communist Party and to mark its [90^th] anniversary,” said a Beijing man who reluctantly gave his name as Zhao and identified himself as a Party member.  He was joined by at least a dozen or so other Party cadres from the capital’s Pinggu district.  “Yan’an has a lot of meaning to us.”

Zhao had been encouraged to divulge his Party credentials—a rare gesture for cadres—by State Council officials who had organized a media trip to Yan’an a couple of weeks ahead of the CPC’s founding anniversary on Friday.

“Go on, you can talk to them, let them ask you a few questions,” said one minder as two or three of us journalists waited expectantly.

Training cadres

Adrienne Mong

A group of Party members from Beijing pose in Zaoyuan, Yan'an.

Government-organized trips are best avoided for obvious reasons, but on this occasion the media were going to be allowed access to tour the China Executive Leadership Academy in Yan’an.

This CPC school is one of three so-called national training bases for Communist Party cadres.  The other two are in Jinggangshan in Jiangxi (where the Long March began) and Pudong in Shanghai. 

Overseeing these three are the Chinese Academy of Governance and the Central Party School in Beijing (“the highest institution charged with the task of training senior and middle-ranking leading cadres of the Party and fostering Marxist theoretical cadres,” according to a brochure).

It’s instructive just visiting the website for each institute. 

The Jinggangshan academy’s site looks much like any other Chinese government bureau website, and the language is the familiar Party rhetoric one hears from officials all the time.  Take the mission statement, for instance: “Seeking truth from facts, keeping pace with the times; maintaining the style of arduous struggle and exercising state power for the people.”

The Pudong academy’s website, on the other hand, is sleek with a simple design and font.  Its mission statement couldn’t be further from its Jinggangshan counterpart in tenor and jargon, sounding very much like the management training center it strives to be: “CELAP, by the integration of ‘value education, capacity building, and behavior orientation,’ strives to foster and sustain strong, ethical and effective leadership for coordinated development of economy and society.”

A corporate retreat

The tone of the Yan’an academy website strikes a note somewhere between those of Jinggangshan and Pudong--much like it appears in reality.

Its spacious campus, lush gardens, and clean, modern facilities rival that of any modern Western institution.  At the same time, it serves as a dramatic backdrop for a chorus of cadres belting out “impromptu” revolutionary songs.

Since the site was completed in 2005, the Yan’an school has trained around 28,000 cadres in ten-day or two-week sessions.  The tuition is free, and cadres are encouraged to take advantage of the courses—depending on their rank and need.

At any given time, only 240 to 260 Party members are on campus, steeping themselves in the lore of the Communist Party—whether it be through classes in Marxist-Leninism, learning traditional rural Chinese dances, or performing “red songs” of the revolutionary era.

The “students” we saw one night practicing a fan dance on the tennis court were director-level cadres.  It was a compulsory lesson, replete with live music and female instructors in Party uniform shouting out instructions, but it was clear from the expressions of the students that they were enjoying the drill.

Adrienne Mong

Party cadres learn traditional dances at the Yan'an Executive Leadership Academy.

In fact, there was something about the whole enterprise that suggested a corporate retreat with a heavy emphasis on team-building exercises or an Outward Bound session.

All these activities weren’t simply about reinforcing Party doctrine and Party history but a means of forging bonds between the cadres and the Party itself and fostering a greater camaraderie among Party members.

“I’ve been to Yan’an many times since the 1980s, just looking around, but this time it’s different” said Liu Hong, Secretary-General of the China Flower Association.  She was sitting in on a lecture about Mao Zedong Thought.  “I feel as though I have a deeper learning and understanding of Yan’an, our Party history, and our Party.”

“It’s important to walk the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” said Yang Zhihe, the course instructor from Xi’an.  “I believe each step we take will be better than the last.  The change of the last thirty years…is proof of that.”

"Serve the people"

Classes are held every morning at the academy.  In the afternoon, however, cadres are given tours of Yan’an’s historical sites.  In Zaoyuan, where Mao and his cohorts lived from 1943-45, a small group of cadres sat on folding stools in the shade, listening to Jiao Liansan give a spirited account of the Long March.

“This isn’t like what you’ve seen in the movies,” Jiao told his rapt audience.  “It wasn’t a neat file of soldiers.  It was messy….  Men didn’t even have shoes, just maybe cloth to wrap around their feet as they hiked.”

Jiao, in fact, had no shortage of colorful sayings that stayed on message: serve the people. 

“If you don’t put the people in your heart, they won’t put you on their shoulders,” he said, quoting an old CPC saying.

Much like the message the CPC Central Committee Party School Vice-President Chen Baosheng gave in a recent press briefing in Beijing.

Adrienne Mong

One of the original beds in Yan'an, where the chain-smoking Mao once slept, is covered with cigarettes--an homage by visitors.

“Our charter says the CPC has no self-interest.  Our overall interest is to serve the people,” said Chen without a trace of irony, despite a persistent line of questioning by reporters that suggested exactly the opposite.

Corruption also features as a subject in academy classes.  If there’s one thing that threatens the fabric of the CPC and its very existence it’s corruption—widespread and endemic among the 80-million strong Party ranks. 

So much so that President Hu Jintao addressed it in his speech on Friday marking the CPC’s founding anniversary:

“And the whole Party is confronted with growing danger of lacking in drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lacking in initiative, and corruption. It has thus become even more important and urgent than ever before for the Party to police itself and impose strict discipline on its members.”

So much so that despite all the celebrations and happy, smiling cadres being televised across monitors around the country on Friday, many Chinese are too cynical to buy into the mantra.

Which is why the Party leadership also takes great pains to rehash its history—a time of great turmoil in the country—in order to remind Chinese everywhere that it’s still best positioned to steer the country.

Feng Li / Getty Images

Chinese President Hu Jintao, right, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao award medals for outstanding Communists during the celebration of the Communist Party's 90th anniversary at the Great Hall of the People on July 1, 2011 in Beijing, China.

"GREAT JOURNEY. GREAT PRACTICE. GREAT SPIRIT. LONG LIVE THE GREAT COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA!"

Eulogizing slogans, Party flags, celebration posters, flowers and plants, mass “red song” sing-a-longs, security guards with red armbands patrolling the streets, revolutionary movies and intensive TV news coverage. You can't escape the chance of being reminded every second that today is the 90th birthday of the Communist Party of China.

I believe that like me, many other Chinese people have been feeling nauseous lately by the seemingly endless bombardment of Party propaganda. It’s like someone who keeps telling you “I’m great, you have to love me, ” ever since you were born. And this someone is with you your whole life.

Just two weeks ago, a heavily invested, star-strewn movie called “Beginning of the Great Revival” was launched in China, with all the biggest Chinese actors and actresses re-enacting the early history of the Party. There’s nothing wrong with educating young people about China’s history, especially with celebrities like Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun-fat, and I have no doubt all these revolutionary forerunners truly believed in communism and universal equality 90 years ago. But we all know China is probably one of the most capitalist countries in the world now. You can do almost anything with money.

I can’t help thinking about when, in 2007, I traveled to North Korea and watched the performance of traditional Korean folk song "Arirang" in Pyongyang’s stadium. It was carried out by 100,000 performers who were hired by the government, but allegedly didn't get paid, despite big ticket sales. For me, watching the dancers, the acrobatics, and the singers was an exotic experience. I watched it with great interest along with many other Chinese and Western tourists. As outsiders, we saw it as an event of fantastic proportions. But for the natives, it was probably different. They were watching their fellow citizens perform a nationalistic ceremony for hours on end, knowing they weren't getting properly compensated. And with the famine in North Korea, surely these performers had worries about food; that was not a concern for us.

It’s the same when I see foreign media at the Great Hall of People to listen to President Hu Jintao’s tedious speeches, which rambled on for hours. Chinese people have been listening to such speeches since the day they were born. When Chinese children go to elementary school, they become the “Communist Young Pioneers”  and wear red scarves that are “dyed with revolutionary martyrs’ blood. "  When they go to junior high school and high school, they join the “Communist Youth League."  Such recruitment is usually universal, but sometimes the teenagers who don’t perform well are excluded. I still remember the humiliation when I was told by my junior high school superior that they would not let me join because of my tendency to talk too much in class. But foreigners just see the festivities at the Great Hall of People; they do not see the history behind them.

The pressure to join the Party
When young people enter college, they move onto the next stage of proving their faith: the struggle to join the Communist Party of China. This stage is much more strict and applicants are heavily scrutinized, so college students have to be politically correct to join. “Politically correct” means you support the Party unconditionally and you can’t complain openly about the Party’s policies. It’s important for many students to join,  because if they later choose to work for the government, there’s a much greater chance to be promoted if you are a Party member. Non-Party members are excluded for certain government organizations.

My father joined the Party in his early twenties while serving in the army. He doesn’t like it when I complain about the government and thinks I’m too influenced by the West. He knows that in our textbooks, history is often twisted and many facts are not told. He knows the corruption is so rampant that it’s almost incurable. He knows hundreds of millions of people were forced to starve to death under the Party’s policies in early 1960s, and he knows students were slaughtered when they called for democracy 22 years ago. But he firmly believes China would become a chaotic mess without the Party and its leadership. It’s hard for me to share the experience with him after, as a student in the U.S.,  I read literature censored in China. He’s spent all his life under the Party’s education, and I can’t force my opinions on him.

This morning, I was at the American Embassy in Beijing and saw long lines of Chinese citizens waiting in the rain to apply for visas to go to America. I couldn’t help thinking, my dear Communist Party, that you tell your people you are the greatest and you want them to love you and kiss you on your 90th birthday, but your people just can’t wait to leave you.

More images: Chinese Communist Party's 90th anniversary