WASHINGTON — A former security guard at a U.S. consulate in China pleaded guilty on Thursday to trying to pass secrets to China, including photographs of the U.S. building site, prosecutors said.

Bryan Underwood, 32, planned to sell information about the U.S. consulate being built in Guangzhou to China's Ministry of State Security for $3 million to $5 million, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement.

Underwood, a former contract civilian guard, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington to one count of attempting to communicate national defense information to a foreign government.

Underwood was arrested on the run by FBI agents in Los Angeles in September 2011 after initial charges that he lied about why he was taking photos of the consulate.

Underwood, a former Indiana resident, had worked as a guard at the consulate construction site from November 2009 to August 2011. He planned to sell the photos and other information after he was hit by stock market reverses, the statement said.

Underwood faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Sentencing is set for Nov. 19.

U.S. prosecutors have brought charges against numerous people over the years who have tried to spy for China. They include some who sought money in exchange for economic or national security-related information. 

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KCNA-KNS via AFP - Getty Images

This undated photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on July 27, 2012 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his wife Ri Sol-Ju reacting after watching a performance by members of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces (KPISF) at Ponghwa Art Theatre in Pyongyang.

BEIJING -- Change in North Korea, and its potential impact on American interests in the Asia-Pacific, is likely to be on the agenda when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Chinese leaders next month on her region-wide tour.

Is the hermit kingdom, with its nuclear weapons program and a “military-first policy” that prioritizes its 1.2 million-strong army, capable of social reform?

Or is the latest staged-managed imagery from Pyongyang—of a Swiss-educated young leader displaying a stylish wife, giving thumbs up to pop music and promising that the belt-tightening days are over—a sign of a new beginning for the impoverished and isolated nation?

The buzz about North Korea’s tantalizing hints of change has gained currency with the recent visit to China of Jang Song Thaek, the powerful uncle of the new North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, followed by reports that Kim himself is seeking to visit China next month.

China vowed greater support and investment in North Korea’s languishing China-style special economic zones, and urged Pyongyang to let “market” principles guide its moribund economy.

But while signs are pointing to change in Pyongyang, North Korean propaganda was denouncing as “hallucination” any talk of reform, denying that the new leadership is breaking with the past.

Authoritarian dictatorship
As a neighbor and ally, China is sensitive to any shift in Pyongyang’s policy directions that could impact China’s interests.  While Beijing provides Pyongyang with massive aid to prevent regime collapse that could cause regional instability, China is opposed to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

“I think it’s not possible for Pyongyang to sacrifice its military-first and nuclear arms policies, and that in turn will limit all possibilities for reform,” observed Zhang Liangui, China’s top scholar on North Korea who graduated from Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang.

“I am not optimistic about reform because Kim Jun Un alone cannot decide, it will be decided by North Korea’s political system which prioritizes the army,” said Zhang, a professor of international strategic research at China’s central school for training communist party officials.

“There is low probability of significant change,” said Daniel Pinkston, Seoul-based senior analyst of the International Crisis Group.

KCNA via AFP - Getty Images

A file picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 28, 2011 shows Kim Jong-Un and his powerful uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, at the funeral of late leader Kim Jong-Il.

North Korea’s system is “structurally set up as an authoritarian dictatorship…as long as the Kim family is in power it will be extraordinarily difficult to renounce the legacy of his father and grandfather,” Pinkston told NBC News, explaining his group’s latest report analyzing the barriers to reform in North Korea’s militarized society.

Preventing a Gadhafi-like fate
“As long as the Kim family regime is in power, they will not surrender nuclear weapons.  But I do not see why this is an obstacle for reforms,” argued Andrei Lankov, a Seoul-based Russian scholar on North Korea who also attended Kim Il Sung University.

“They will keep their nuclear devices, five or ten of them, for the deterrence purposes, just to make sure that they will not suffer the sorry state of Colonel [Moammar] Gadhaf i—while reforming the country if they consider that reform suit their interest,” he told NBC News.

Lankov noted, however, the “destabilizing” effects of reform. ”Sadly, the conservatives might be correct and I will not be surprised if the reforms will bring about a sudden collapse of the North Korean state,” he said, alluding to the examples of East Germany and Tunisia.

“It is still possible to take steps toward the market without giving up the nuclear program, though you would have to limit military spending,” according to Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.

But for Sneider, one issue is the challenge posed to Pyongyang’s legitimacy by South Korea. North Korea used to be more prosperous than the South due to pampering by China and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.  But now, the North’s economy is barely three percent of the South’s, with half the population. The majority of North Koreans suffer from food shortages, according to UN reports.

“In the South, there is a wonderful example of a highly successful Korean market economy—the North claims to be morally superior and a purer Korean state, unpolluted by Western capitalism.  If they go down the road of market reform, that undermines a central plank of North Korean ideology,” Sneider said.

“The path of reform will be chosen by North Korea but China will certainly provide help,” said Lu Chao, director of North Korea Studies at the Academy of Social Sciences in Liaoning province, which shares a long border with North Korea.

Limited risk
Lu, who frequently meets with North Korean officials and businessmen from across the border, detects Pyongyang’s new focus on the economy.

“Kim Jung Un is focused on improving the quality of life, this can be seen in his visits to parks and artistic performances, in contrast with his father who prioritized the military,” Lu told NBC News.

“Some reforms are going on in the country, especially in agriculture,” he added, noting that farming reforms will pose “limited risks” to the regime.

For the International Crisis Group’s Pinkston, US policy should remain “deterrence and containment while being observant”.  

“The US should monitor, bilaterally and multilaterally, the situation in North Korea, maintain a strong deterrence and containment posture, but be willing, when the opportunity presents itself,  to engage North Korea if it changes its policy directions,” Pinkston said.

Clinton is scheduled to visit China Sept 4-5, before becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit East Timor, which gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

She will later visit the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vladivostok, eastern Russia.

NBC researchers Tianzhou Ye and Lorraine Liu contributed to this report. 

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Aarne Heikkila / NBC News

Finishing touches have just been made on a 25 million yuan (approximately $4 million) mosque that's being used by Yiwu's estimated 35,000 Muslims, one third of whom can be found at the religious center during its busiest prayer periods.

NBC Producer Aarne Heikkila recently traveled to Yiwu, China, a city renowned for its 70,000 wholesale vendors selling everything from plastic figurines to rubber bands, jewelry to exercise books.

Recently trade between China and the Arab world, in particular, has been booming. The city is home to what is said to be one of the fastest growing Muslim communities in mainland China. 

We've reported on the excessive amount of consumer goods available in Yiwu's 173 acre wholesale before. See Adrienne Mong's report: Need fridge magnets in bulk? No prob

Aarne Heikkila / NBC News

Many Chinese Muslims in Yiwu come from China's Xinjiang semi-autonomous region in the northwest of the country. The region, home to the Uighur ethnic minority, is known for its separatist movement. The residents who hail from Xinjiang have helped turned this city into a key center for Islam in eastern China.

See some of Aarne’s recent photos showing the Islamic influence on the city. 

Aarne Heikkila / NBC News

Middle Eastern restaurants in Yiwu, like this one called "Sultan's," have sprung up along Yiwu's main boulevard. Most bring in cooks and staff from back home and service a Middle Eastern clientele.

Aarne Heikkila / NBC News

One of the many Chinese vendors in Yiwu sells lamps.

EuroPics[CEN]

Lou Xiaoying, right, lies in the hospital with one of her daughters, center. Lou, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned babies from the streets of Jinhua, in eastern Zhejiang province, China, where she made a living recycling rubbish.

BEIJING – “What?! No, she is alive in the hospital,” exclaimed Zhang Jingjing through the phone lines.

Zhang was responding to concern on Weibo, China’s popular Twitter-like service, claiming that Lou Xiaoying, her adoptive mother, had died.

The worry was understandable, for Lou, 88, has been hailed a hero in China for reportedly saving more than 30 abandoned babies from trash cans and dumps over the past four decades.

Lou is suffering from kidney disease in the hospital, but, according to her daughter, she's still alive.

"My mother has gotten better,” Zhang, 33, reported. “The hospital has spared us much expense. They have also minimized the kinds of medicines that my mom has to use. Money collected from donations has helped us a lot, too."

Helping others
Lou, who was born in 1924 in Fujian Province, collected and recycled garbage to make a living. She and her husband, who died 17 years ago, had two biological children, a daughter and a son. 

Over the years of scavenging, Lou found 30 children who had been abandoned, mostly as a result of China’s strict one-child policy. She and her husband adopted three daughters while the remaining children, mostly girls, were passed to other people to start new lives.

According to an article in Britain’s Daily Mail, Lou found her first abandoned child, a girl, when she was out collecting garbage in 1972. 

“She was just lying amongst the junk on the street, abandoned. She would have died had we not rescued her and taken her in,” she said, according to the Daily Mail report. “I realized if we had strength enough to collect garbage, how could we not recycle something as important as human lives?”

“These children need love and care. They are all precious human lives,” she added. “I do not understand how people can leave such a vulnerable baby on the streets.”

Zhang told NBC News that "at one point, there were 12 members in the family” living in a deserted temple on the outskirts of the city of Jinhua, about 200 miles south of Shanghai. "It wasn't until 1987 when they were building a railway and wanted to remove our temple, did [authorities] find out about our family,” she added.

The family’s future was complicated by the rigid household registration system designed to control the movement of China’s 1.3 billion people. Known in Chinese as hukou, the central government classifies people as either city dwellers or rural peasants, which determines not only a citizen’s residence but also what kind of social services and schools they are eligible for.

Because they were living “off the grid,” none of Lou’s adopted children had a hukou. But Zhang said that people in the area soon heard about the family and help came along.

"There were some communal donations which helped two of us adopted ones go to school. But my oldest adopted sister, who is now 40, has never gone to school,” said Zhang.  

Even in old age, Lou kept going out to collect trash several times a day. In 2007, Lou discovered a boy, Zhang Qilin, in a dumpster. She adopted the boy, who is now 7, as her grandson; his adoptive father is Lou’s biological son. 

The youngster encountered the same problem of not having a hukou. But after a series of reports about Lou in the local Jinhua Daily, followed by other reports in the Chinese and international press, Zhang was granted permission to attend a public school called Jindong District Experimental School in Jinhua. In addition, his hukou registration process is now under way.   

‘Grandma Lou deserves her dreams to be fulfilled’
Fang Qing, the principal of the public school, spoke with NBC News about Lou’s youngest adoptee.

“I take for granted that every child in China has a right to education, no matter what his background is like,” Fang said, adding that the school would keep a special eye on Zhang Qilin.

“Grandma Lou deserves her dreams to be fulfilled. Good people should be rewarded with good,” Fang said.

Many netizens have chimed in on Weibo about Lou’s heroism.

“What would the world be like if only we have a few more people like Grandma Lou. I respect you, Grandma,” wrote one user.

Lou’s concern for others lives on in her daughter, Zhang, who agreed to be interviewed as long as no foreign donation appeal would be made through NBC.

“We are not in a very positive position financially,” she said, “but neither do we lack money now for my mother’s medical treatments. … We are very grateful, but we are doing fine now.”

Asked if she has ever thought about finding her biological parents, Zhang answered “No” resolutely. “She has always been my mother.”

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• Can Chinese eye exercises help prevent myopia?

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BEIJING – Zhang Xinyu meticulously completes her eye exercises twice daily. Her teacher tells her they will help keep her eyesight sharp. At age 12, Xinyu has already been wearing glasses for two years.  

For 49 years, the Chinese Education Ministry has required students to exercise their eyes in the name of the Communist Revolution and to combat myopia, or short-sightedness.

The prevalence of myopia, however, is skyrocketing. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of Chinese are short-sighted by the end of high school – triple the U.S. rate. Few Chinese questioned the effectiveness of the eye exercises over the past five decades – until a recent post challenging the exercises was published earlier this summer on Sina Weibo, China’s widely popular answer to Twitter. 

“China has had eye exercises for 49 years,” posted a microblooger under the alias “Live from Shanghai.” “Of all the countries in the world, only China uses these eye exercises. The eye exercises are no good for people’s vision. Today, more than 360 million Chinese teenagers have myopia, the second largest percentage in the world.” 

The post ignited a firestorm online. Within a day, the post was re-tweeted more than 10,000 times and had received 1.5 million comments on Sina Weibo.  

What are Chinese eye exercises?
All schools in China require students to do the exercises daily, playing familiar music over loud speakers during the workout. The Education Ministry even organizes occasional competitions to reinforce the program.  

This uniquely Chinese activity dates back to 1961, when the Beijing Education Bureau noticed a sharp increase in the rate of myopia and appointed a Chinese doctor to create exercises to stop the growing problem. 

“The Beijing government must have taken this issue very seriously,” said Yan Yirou, a retired employee from the Beijing Education Bureau who worked closely on developing the eye exercises. “There were only three people in charge of students’ health, and two were sent out to handle the project.”

It took two years to develop the exercises. Chinese students have been performing them ever since, except during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when schools were often closed.

Are they effective?
“For the Communist Revolution, let’s protect eye sight and prevent short-sightedness,” was the explanation school children received for the exercises until recently.  

The Chinese Education Ministry cannot provide a scientific rationale for this practice. Under pressure from netizens following the recent Weibo post, the ministry told the Oriental Morning Post, “We’ll ask the experts and make an announcement as soon as possible.”

Ministry officials declined an interview request from NBC News to explain the benefits of the exercises.  

Zhu Tianyu, a Beijing local in his 40s, admitted his doubts about the exercises. “I do not know whether they help or not. My eyesight is awful, but I never took the eye exercises seriously.”

His wife, Du Yu, disagrees. “It works,” she said. “I still do them now. Every time I exercise, I feel my eyes are more relaxed.”

Not everyone is convinced.

“It’s difficult for me to say whether they are good or not. But even if they are, their advantages are not apparent,” Xu Yujing, who's been a high school teacher for more than 25 years, told NBC. “Students do not know the pressure points… Everyone does it for the sake of inspection.”

Ian Morgan, a visiting scholar at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center in Guangzhou, is even more skeptical of the Chinese routine.

“I think it is pretty obvious that Chinese eye exercises do not prevent myopia,” Morgan said. “There is no scientific evidence that they do anything useful at all.”

Student pressure
There is broad consensus that China's hyper-competitive education system is a prime cause of the prevalence of myopia.   

“The Chinese believe that exams and the Gaokao [the Chinese college entrance exam] decide a student’s future,” said Yan Yirou, the retired Education Bureau employee. “The eyesight problem is obviously from the heavy school work. In my survey for the Education Ministry, I found myopia rates were the lowest during the Cultural Revolution because no one was studying."

Chinese school children's excessive workloads have only gotten worse with time and are widely believed to be contributing to the problem. 

“When I became a teacher in 1986, only one third of students were short-sighted,” said Xu, the longtime teacher. “Today, most students in my class are.”

Pressure for students to study is intense – especially since a student’s Gaokao score can largely dictate his or her future career path.

Despite the prevalence of myopia and the flawed eye exercises, there appears to be no solution in sight.

“It’s unlikely that either the Chinese education system or the eye exercises will change anytime soon,” said Zhang Xin, chairman of the Beijing Education Association Students' Health Division.

Some recent research has shown that children who spend more time outside during daylight hours do not become short-sighted, even if they study a lot. But getting children outside is difficult when the pressure to study is so great. 

Some Chinese parents are now taking their overworked children to so-called “eye exercise centers,” where children can rest while masseurs do the eye exercises for them.

At only $3.50 for one treatment, the cost seems like a bargain way to combat short-sightedness for the glory of the Communist Revolution.

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AFP - Getty Images

Chinese beachgoers wear body suits and protective head masks, dubbed "facekinis," on a crowded public beach in Qingdao, on Aug. 16.

BEIJING – In the West, getting a tan is one of the main reasons for going to the beach.

But in China, some are going to extraordinary lengths to avoid getting a bit of sun with a new item of beachwear – dubbed the Facekini – causing something of a stir in the coastal tourist city of Qingdao, Shandong Province.

The masks completely cover the swimmers' heads, revealing only their eyes, noses, and mouths.

The styles and colors of the masks suggest a huge happy beach party attended by some lesser superheroes, Mexican wrestlers and perhaps a few bank robbers is underway. In fact, government officials have become concerned that the masks could be used to rob banks, according to a report in The New York Times.

"These have been extremely popular," Zaizaibao (仔仔寶), an online seller from Henan on shopping Internet site taobao.com, said.

Another online store sold 542 masks, which come in different colors and patterns, in just 30 days. "We are already out of the pink ones.... All of them sell well. Orange is the most effective in protecting people from sea creatures."

AFP - Getty Images

Users say the face masks are useful in protecting against insects and jellyfish.

The masks are an outward expression of a Chinese understanding of beauty in terms of skin color.

"I myself don't mind getting tanned, but I can see why pale skin is attractive," Alina Zhao, a college student in the U.S. who grew up in Zhejiang, China, said.

"It definitely has to do with the history of China, which is largely an agricultural society,” she added. “Getting tanned means you work outside in the fields a lot, so skin color is like an indicator of your social status. The fairer you are, the wealthier or more respected you seem."

Umbrellas on a sunny day
In fact, Facekini is only one out of many attempts by Chinese people to stay fair. The number of umbrellas to be seen in Chinese cities on a hot, sunny day might appear bizarre to many non-Chinese people.

"I first became aware of the phenomenon when I lived in Taiwan for the summer," Simone Cote, from Vermont and currently working in Beijing, said. "I constantly saw that women covered themselves when they went out. They wore pants often, and yes, umbrellas everywhere."

Cote was asked "Why is your skin so dark?" by her host mother in Taiwan.

Within this underlying concept of what is beautiful, the Facekini was perhaps a logical development.

A user of the mask commented in Chinese on taobao.com that "this item is very effective in keeping the UV [ultra-violet light] out, and it's very comfortable. With this, you can do whatever you want on a beach, with no worries of getting burned or tanned. It's really recommended."

Another user, Tongchao, seems to have debated between the benefit of not getting tanned and the possibility of getting laughed at in this mask. "Okay. I've become the focused again, but this item is really useful. It's actually not stuffy at all. I really like it!" Looks like he or she has made a choice – but not an easy one.

When asked if she would ever wear one, Alina gave her answer without a second thought.

"Of course no! I was never into sunscreen – I'll never get this fair anyway, so why bother? I would rather enjoy the sun."

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Jason Lee / Reuters

Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai waves as he attends the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in March 2012.

BEIJING -- Monday's murder conviction for the wife of Bo Xilai, once one of China's most powerful men, may have brought to an end the investigation into the death of British businessman Neil Heywood but it left in question the fate of her husband, who is being pursued for party "disciplinary violations."

Is Bo the next target of a deepening struggle? Or will he be spared from harsher punishments? Leading China analysts have varied responses but there is unanimity that Gu Kailai's conviction was also a nail in the coffin of her politician husband's career.

Wife of disgraced Chinese leader gets death sentence with reprieve

'Politically carbonized'
To counter Bo's "continuing popularity" among some segments of the population, China's Communist Party attempted to depict the case in terms of the most heinous of crimes -- murder, said Joseph Fewsmith, a leading expert on Chinese politics at Boston University and author of several books on China.

"It certainly is a case of murder, but in a sense, the killing of Heywood allows the party to sidestep all the other issues -- the way Bo conducted his 'strike black' campaign, the so-called Chongqing model and his political ambitions -- by focusing on the murder," Fewsmith said.

Strike black refers to Bo's anti-corruption and anti-crime campaign that implicated millionaires, local officials, police officers and gangsters. Under the Chongqing model that Bo advocated, the state increased its role in society and led huge public projects.

"Despite the strong evidence of criminal activity (murder), it seems likely that many will continue to read this case as part of a political struggle," Fewsmith said.

And in this political struggle, China's leftist elite -- known as neo-cons -- are the likely losers, said Professor Jean-Pierre Cabestan, head of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University and a prominent scholar on China.

Closed-door murder trial: Wife of ousted politician Bo Xilai faces China court

"Some neo-cons may have tried or be willing to save Bo Xilai, in order to serve their own interests. I am inclined to think they will fail, because both the outside world and the Chinese blogosphere know too much about this terrible couple, their family and their wealth," Cabestan told NBC News.

"In other words, Bo is a liability, he is worn out, he is politically carbonized," he added.

'Chongqing model' dead or alive?
"But we should not jump to the conclusion that the reformists will enjoy an upper hand in the coming months," Cabestan said, adding that the Chongqing model that Bo championed was not sustainable.

Stringer / China / Reuters

China's former Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai (R) and his wife Gu Kailai (L), who was found guilty of murdering a British businessman.

"It's too expensive for the state, too hostile to private businesses and too distant from the rule of law," Cabestan said.

"But the pro-state, pro-state-owned enterprises leaders have not been totally defeated and there are so many vested interests around the perpetuation of a strong and entrepreneurial party-state," Cabestan said.

Professor Bo Zhiyue, expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore, agreed that Bo was finished politically, but argued that his governing style was not necessarily dead.

"With Bo as a major competitor out of the way, the new leadership could be more stable," Bo Zhiyue told NBC News.

"However, they can't avoid using some of Bo's programs in its new policies because Bo's Chongqing model has really provided a lot of good experiments for China's future development, in particular with regards to income inequality, public housing, and new growth model."

Scandal sends China's netizens into feeding frenzy

China's leadership is acutely aware of the growing income inequality that the country's economic prosperity has produced, with newly wealthy political and business elites prompting resentment among the majority.

Indeed, official and online media have given coverage to a growing number of grassroots protests driven by the discontent felt by those left behind in the economic race, or those alienated by the corrupt collusion of wealth and power.

"There is consensus that the government needs to allocate more resources to address social injustice and income inequality," according to Li Mingjiang, China politics professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, noting the efforts of China's leadership in this regard.

"In that sense, the Chongqing model is not dead at all," he told NBC News.

Appeasing the poor
The government has been trying appease many people in undeveloped and poor regions of Western China, for example, by increasing state investments in these regions. Nevertheless, the consensus among China watchers is that Bo went too far in his politics and governing style. 

More China coverage from NBCNews.com's Behind The Wall

"Bo Xilai (was) too extreme in his policy in Chongqing, particularly his Cultural Revolution style political campaign," Li said. "These extreme policies are dead, at least for the coming years."

However, China's ruling elite had to deal with the fact that technology made it impossible to keep the case under wraps.  

"The amount of information and the intensity of discussion that were revealed in the social media exerted a lot of pressure on the party to release more information about the Bo Xilai case partly in order to forestall and clear rumors," Li added.

"The party has to be very careful not to unnecessarily antagonize Bo's supporters and sympathizers because these people are vocal and scrutinizing ... various forms of social media," he said.

To Cabestan, Bo's "political death or carbonization have been in part caused by the Internet and the speed with which outside information and rumors have circulated in China."

In sum, the experts with whom NBC News spoke agreed that while Bo may be neutralized through the case against his wife and the diciplinary measure he faces, the country's leadership will likely tread carefully given Bo's enduring popularity.

So the suspended death sentence handed down to Bo Xilai's wife signifies a "decision made by the highest leadership," said Professor Jerome Cohen, a veteran authority on Chinese law at New York University.

"The state leaders know that Bo Xilai is still very popular and has lot of support, and to that extent, the court's decision is the most popular option and the best compromise they could have come out with," he added.

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Updated at 2:30 a.m. ET: BEIJING — The wife of Bo Xilai, the former high-flying Chinese politician, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve after being found guilty Monday of murdering a British businessman, marking the swift descent of a man who was once one of China's most powerful figures.

The sentence means Gu Kailai is likely to face life in prison, provided she does not commit offenses in the next two years, Reuters reported.

Zhang Xiaojun, a Bo family aide who admitted to helping Gu with the murder, received a nine-year jail sentence, a witness to the hearing said. Non-official media were not allowed in the courtroom.

Witnesses said that neither would appeal the decision.

Gu's prosecution in the killing of Neil Heywood was the first step in Beijing's efforts to resolve the biggest political scandal to hit China in decades. Bo, the former party secretary for the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, had been a controversial figure in Chinese politics with his embrace of Marxist policies and his liberal use of local police to silence critics.

After wife's conviction, what next for Bo Xilai?

The high-profile case shed unwanted light on high-level government corruption and murder by Chinese Communist Party elite. With party leaders already highly sensitive to the public perception of instability and corruption within their ranks, the scandal broke as Beijing prepared for a once-a-decade leadership change.

The conviction of Gu, 53, was all but ensured when the murder charges were released by state media with reassurances from unnamed investigators that there was ample evidence to convict.

Alexander F. Yuan / AP file

Former Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, right, and his wife, Gu Kailai, at a government ceremony in Beijing in 2007.

Scandal sends China's netizens into a feeding frenzy

"The facts of the two defendants' crime are clear," the investigator told China's official state news agency, Xinhua, late last month. "The evidence is irrefutable and substantial." 

What remained to be seen, though, was how the Communist Party would punish one of its own — the wife of a man many experts once considered a serious candidate for China's all-powerful nine-person standing committee.

The answer was hinted at in the carefully composed narrative that has come out in the Chinese media about the case. During the one-day trial Aug. 9, the premeditated way Gu Kailai planned and carried out the murder of her former business partner was clearly evidenced, but it was steeped in justifications and rationalizations — so much so that by the end of Xinhua's account, Gu came off as a protective mother pushed to the edge.

Business dispute?
Heywood, 41, allegedly had become embroiled in a business dispute over a deal he entered into with Gu's son, Bo Guagua. When that business venture fell apart, Heywood allegedly sent a menacing email saying he would "destroy" Gu unless he was paid the tens of millions of dollars he believed he was owed from the deal. 

He then allegedly locked the 24-year old in a house in Britain.

"The few days last November, when I learned my son's life was at death's door, my mind indeed collapsed," Gu said, according to Xinhua. It was then, suffering from "chronic insomnia, anxiety and depression, and paranoia," according to an expert panel, that Gu decided she had to kill Heywood to protect her son.

"To me, that [Heywood's email] was more than a threat. It was real action that was taking place," Gu testified, "I must fight to my death to stop the craziness of Neil Heywood."

Allegedly enlisting the help of Zhang, her former family employee and an ex-soldier, Gu lured Heywood to Chongqing with the intention of poisoning him. On Nov. 13, Gu and Heywood had dinner before driving back to the villa he was staying at in the Nanshan Lijing resort.

China puts cops on trial for 'bending the law' to help wife of ousted politician

There, the two drank whisky and tea until Heywood became drunk and vomited. Zhang then entered the room and helped Heywood to his bed while also allegedly slipping two vials — one filled with a cyanide compound and another of a different drug — of poison to Gu that she had procured earlier. When Heywood asked for water, Gu allegedly poured the poison into his mouth.  

Stringer / China / Reuters

A combination of two photographs shows British businessman Neil Heywood and Gu Kailai.

The next day, Gu told Wang Lijun, Chongqing's police chief and a trusted ally of Bo Xilai, of the killing. 

Wang secretly recorded the conversation but also helped to cover up the murder. In response to inquiries by the British government and the Heywood family, Chongqing police reported the death as an accident due to alcohol poisoning. 

Gu may have gotten away with murder, but she couldn't anticipate what came next: a falling-out between Wang and Bo Xilai that led the police chief to flee in March to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, where he sought asylum. There, with U.S. officials present, Wang dropped the bombshell about Gu's involvement in Heywood's murder.

Wang's explosive accusation and his taped evidence forced the Ministry of Public Security to reopen the case and may have sealed his own fate. Xinhua's account ominously noted that his entry to the U.S. consulate was "without authorization." 

Wang's trial is expected soon.

City divided by disgraced Communist leader's legacy

More questions than answers
Those who knew Heywood well have raised serious questions about the chain of events laid out by the Chinese courts. Could Heywood, who has been described as a gentleman and generally not violent, have really threatened Gu's son? Did Gu Kailai truly have a mental breakdown? Or was this a convenient way for the Communist Party to distance itself? 

Officials: Chinese serial killer shot dead after massive manhunt

More important, what does the sentence bode for Bo? He's under house arrest while under investigation. Does his wife's show trial signal the end of the public phase of this scandal? Will Bo be disciplined internally by the Communist Party? Or will he also get his day in court? 

The fact that Bo's name doesn't come up in Xinhua's account bodes well for his chances of riding out this storm. But in the opaque world of Chinese Communist Party politics, it will likely be a fruitless endeavor reconciling the official party narrative with what actually happened.

Top China politician's wife named as murder suspect

Professor Jerome Cohen, a leading authority on Chinese law at New York University, called the court decision a "typical Chinese compromise."

"It was a show trial that raised more questions than it answered. The sentence given was anticipated because to execute her immediately would have alienated more numbers of people who still support Bo Xilai or who don't think the trial was telling us the whole story or fair," he told NBC News in a telephone interview.

"This trial demonstrated the need for genuine due process of law in China because this case did not have it, it doesn't show us the involvement of her husband, there are many missing links in the puzzle," he added.

He Weifang, a prominent professor of law at Peking Universitgy, concurs that the court verdict was "absolutely a political decision, not a judicial one." "If the crime were committed by ordinary people, the outcome would have been different," he told NBC News.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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© David Gray / Reuters / Reuters, file

A boat sails past an unmaintained jetty at the deserted former venue for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games rowing competition, located on the outskirts of Beijing, on March 27, 2012.

Four years on from the Beijing Olympics, some of the Games venues are certainly white elephants.

But no one should underestimate the prestige factor for China's Communist Party government in terms of justifying the construction.

The construction of these structures allowed China to show that it could mobilize its resources and pull off -- as they often point out -- a flawless Games. Just before London 2012 began, the People's Daily newspaper said the Beijing Games were generally regarded as the best ever. 

In that sense, the Games and the stadiums represent the best and worst of the Communist Party's relationship with the people and the direction it's taking for the future. 

The famous Bird's Nest stadium, built at a cost of about $500 million, usually has very healthy crowds of people around it and is in pretty good shape.

London 2012's legacy: No more UK couch potatoes or another Olympic 'white elephant'?

However, it has failed to attract a major sports team and has only hosted a few music concerts, a snowboard competition and a couple of friendly soccer competitions, involving top sides like Arsenal and Manchester City from England and Italy's Juventus and Napoli, who play this Saturday.

Water-slide popular
Many of the sites get a lot of visitors, though the numbers are said to be dipping.

The Water Cube has been one of the more successful venues since 2008. The popularity of a water-slide park built inside the Cube is reflected in its high prices. It also host concerts and other events periodically inside.

As I understand it, the Water Cube isn't making money, but it isn't losing too much compared to other sites.

More coverage of London 2012 on NBCNews.com

I visited the Olympic rowing site two months ago. While the park was quiet, Olympic athletes were training there and there were also a couple of corporate and high school student groups who had rented the place out to learn how to dragonboat race for team-building purposes.

Much of the site is blocked off, but they have adapted it since the Olympics ended, adding a water park for kids and tricycles for people to ride around the park.

The Olympic basketball venue was one of the few that actually successfully found a sponsor, Mastercard, and it has held a fair amount of events like NBA exhibition games every year.

Also many of the major Chinese pop bands and Western acts tend to hold their shows there.

So some of the venues are still performing a useful purpose and, even if others have become white elephants, for China's rulers, it was worth it.

Updated at 8:40 a.m. ET: HEFEI, China -- The woman at the center of China's most politically explosive trial in three decades did not contest charges of murder on Thursday in a hearing that lasted just seven hours and could determine the fate of former politician Bo Xilai.

Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, chose not to contest the charge of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood, whose alleged secretive dealings with the couple fuelled a scandal exposing the intimate nexus between money and power in China's elite.

A formal verdict will be delivered at a later date, a court official said, recounting details of the closed-door hearing.

CCTV via Reuters TV

Gu Kailai, center, appears at the Hefei Intermediate People's Court on Thursday.

The dramatic account of Heywood's death by poisoning is also likely to sound the final death knell to Bo's political career, even as sympathizers cast him as the victim of a push to oust him and discredit his left-leaning agenda.

"The accused Bogu (Gu) Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun did not raise objections to the accusations of intentional homicide," the official, Tang Yigan, said after the hearing, referring also to Gu's co-accused, an aide to the family. 

State television showed Gu, wearing a dark pant suit and white shirt, being led into the courtroom and being seated in the dock. She appeared to have put on weight since she was detained earlier this year. 

Wife of ousted China politician charged with Briton's murder

Reuters

This photo shows Bo Xilai, British businessman Neil Heywood and Bo's wife Gu Kailai.

The court official quoted prosecutors as saying Gu and Zhang had killed Heywood with a poisoned drink in far southwestern Chongqing last November, after a business dispute between Gu and Heywood. Bo ruled the vast municipality until he was sacked in March just before the murder scandal burst into the open. 

As a result of the dispute with Heywood, Gu had become convinced Heywood was a threat to her son, Bo Guagua, the official said without elaborating. 

"Gu Kailai believed that Neil Heywood had threatened the personal safety of her son Bo (Guagua) and decided to kill him," the official added, reading from a statement to a packed news conference of dozens of reporters who had been barred entry to the courtroom in the eastern city of Hefei. 

The aide, Zhang, had driven Heywood to Chongqing last November from Beijing and prepared a poison which was to be put later into a drink of water. Later that day, Heywood met Gu at a hotel, where he became drunk and then asked for water. 

"She poured a poison into his mouth," the official said. 

Gu was represented by government-appointed lawyers. Her trial is seen by many Chinese as part of a push against her husband Bo, who made powerful enemies as he campaigned to join the next generation of top central leaders.

Bo was formerly considered a contender for the inner sanctum of power -- the party's Politburo Standing Committee -- in a once-in-a-decade leadership transition that is currently under way. The new leadership is expected to be unveiled in October.

Earlier, a British diplomat was seen entering the court, but did not comment. International media were not allowed into the court.

Censorship
State censorship of Internet chatter on the trial was swifter than normal on Thursday. Users of China's popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo played cat and mouse with authorities to discuss the case and used word play to try to get around the controls.

NYT: Increasingly outspoken military alarms China's leaders 

Police dragged two protesters away from outside the Hefei Intermediate People's Court in eastern China. The two Bo supporters kicked and yelled as they were put into an unmarked car after they had appeared outside the building, condemning the trial as a sham and singing patriotic songs that were the trademark of Bo's populist leadership style.

"I don't believe it. This case was decided well in advance," Hu Jiye, a middle-aged man wearing a T-shirt and baseball cap, told foreign reporters at the rear of the court building, which was cordoned off by dozens of police standing in heavy rain.

Eugene Hoshiko / AP

Police officers stand guard outside a court where the murder trial of Gu Kailai was held on Thursday in Hefei, China.

Hu and his friend were then shoved by police officers into a car. His companion, also a middle-aged man, struggled and yelled, "Why are you taking me? Why are you taking me?"

But many ordinary Chinese citizens were unaware of the trial, or felt that it had little impact on their lives. 

"We are not really interested in the Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai cases because they are far removed from us, we are very busy with our daily lives," Beijing construction manager Ji Jiaminghe told NBC News. 

"The lesson of the Bo Xilai case is that it was wrong to go against the political mainstream," Ji said, even as he acknowledged that he loved to sing and listen to the "Red Songs" that Bo promoted. 

Communist Party aristocracy
The trial of Gu, the glamorous daughter of ruling Communist Party aristocracy, is the most sensational since the conviction of the Gang of Four more than 30 years ago for crimes during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Gu and family aide Zhang Xiaojun face the death penalty if convicted of poisoning the former family friend.

Police sources initially claimed Gu had poisoned Heywood in a disagreement over an illicit financial transaction she had wanted him to help her complete, and they portrayed Gu as a greedy wife who was translating her husband's connections into dollars.

Sources: Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader's wife

But Gu's alleged personal motive for the killing --  that Gu believed Heywood was a threat to her son -- may count as a mitigating circumstance and help Gu avoid execution.

Any hesitance to put Gu to death would make sense, according to Hu Xingdou, an outspoken blogger and frequent government critic, told NBC News. 

Scandal sends China's netizens into feeding frenzy

"The death penalty is not likely precisely because a political struggle is involved and people don't like political rivals being executed," he said.

In announcing the indictment about two weeks ago, the official Xinhua News Agency made clear the government considers the verdict a foregone conclusion.

"The facts of the two defendants' crime are clear, and the evidence is irrefutable and substantial," it said.

The trial and sentencing of both Gu and Zhang are widely seen as a prelude to a possible criminal prosecution of Bo, who is being detained for violating party discipline -- an accusation that covers corruption, abuse of power and other misdeeds.

Bo, who was a favorite of party leftists and promoted himself as a friend of the poor and an enemy of corruption, was sacked as Chongqing party chief in March after his police chief, Wang Lijun, identified Gu as a suspect in Heywood's death.

Press behaved 'appallingly'?
On Thursday morning, there was no sign of Gu's elderly mother, nor of any members of Heywood's family in or around the courtroom.

In London, Heywood's mother accused the press of spreading lies about her son. "You've all behaved so appallingly," Ann Heywood said Wednesday outside her home.

British media have suggested Neil Heywood was involved in money laundering, worked for British intelligence or that he was Gu's lover. Ann Heywood claimed to know more about the case than was in the public domain, but she wasn't specific and said the truth would come out eventually.

 More China coverage from NBCNews.com's Behind the Wall blog

Before his ouster in the spring, Bo, also the son of a revolutionary veteran, was one of China's most powerful and charismatic politicians. But his overt maneuvering for a top political job, as well as high-profile campaigns to bust organized crime and promote communist culture -- while trampling over civil liberties and reviving memories of the chaotic Cultural Revolution in the process -- angered some leaders.

Bo is the first Politburo member to be removed from office in five years and the scandal kicked up talk of a political struggle involving Bo supporters intent on derailing succession plans calling for Vice President Xi Jinping to lead the party for the next decade.

Bo is in the hands of the party's internal discipline and inspection commission, which is expected to issue a statement about his infractions. That would open the way for a court trial with charges possibly including obstructing police work and abuse of power. Thus far, Bo has been accused only of grievous but unspecified rules violations.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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David Gray / Reuters

China's Ye Shiwen poses with her gold medal on the podium during the women's 400m individual medley victory ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Center on Saturday.

BEIJING – On the heels of her second gold medal performance, China’s state media have come to the defense of Chinese swimmer, Ye Shiwen, ending their relative silence on the doping allegations that have plagued the young female swimmer since her recording-breaking performance last weekend.

On Saturday night, the 16-year-old Ye demolished the world record in the 400 individual medley, coming from behind to win gold in 4:28.43. Besides swimming that race nearly seven seconds faster than her winning performance at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai last year, she also incredibly outpaced American gold medalist Ryan Lochte’s final 50 in the men’s race by a split-second.

(Watch the 400 IM race here) 

Lochte won the 400 medley with the second-fastest time in history.

Ye’s dominant performance raised eyebrows among some swimming experts, including John Leonard, the head of the American Swimming Coaches Association who openly questioned the legitimacy of Ye’s victory.

“History in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable,’ history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved,” Leonard was quoted as saying.

Questions were renewed Tuesday after Ye won again, this time breaking her own Olympic record in the 200 IM.  The win made Ye the first two-time gold medal winner in Chinese swimming history.

It also made her a target for pointed questions regarding her impressive performances so far.

By all accounts, Tuesday’s press conference for Ye Shiwen following her 200 IM victory was inundated with questions regarding doping and performance-enhancing drugs.

However, for the Chinese press corps yesterday, the story was not so much Ye’s answers – as the media’s questions.

Chinese outrage
One Chinese account of the press conference noted angrily that toward the end, one Western reporter directly asked Ye, “I’d like to ask you if you doped to win that gold medal. Please answer me directly with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”

According to the report, Ye looked the reporter directly in the eye and shot back, “Absolutely no! Why am I the only one who is suspected of cheating when other foreign athletes also win multiple gold medals?”

The tone of the reporter’s question led to complaints from the furious Chinese press, many of whom felt professional and etiquette boundaries were breached.

“A 16-year-old genius not only can't enjoy her victory, but also has to be subjected to this ‘interrogation,’” one Chinese journalist reportedly said. “As Chinese journalists, we have the right to protest."

One person who did protest was Ye’s father, Ye Qingsong, who told a local Chinese news website here that, "The Western media have always been arrogant, and suspicious of Chinese people."

State media: a ‘deep bias’ by Western media
China’s state media have largely stayed quiet on the subject of doping, only mentioning in passing in some reports the accusations and Ye’s dismissal of them.

But following the press conference, the media stepped up to defend Ye.

China’s reliably nationalist newspaper, Global Times, chimed in with an editorial Wednesday that said negative comments about Ye were rooted in a “deep bias and reluctance from the Western press to see Chinese people making breakthroughs.”

“If Ye were an American, the tone would be different in Western media,” continued the editorial. “Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the 2008 Games. Nobody seems to question the authenticity of his results, most probably because he is American.”

Nobody that is, except for China’s former Olympic doctor who claimed Tuesday  he long suspected Michael Phelps as a doper, but remained silent because  he had no evidence. 

The Global Times acknowledged the country’s past doping incidents were an understandable source of suspicion towards Ye, but pointedly noted that she has passed doping tests conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

On China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, coverage of the Olympic Games included an on-air comment from host Zhou Yafei, who noted that Ye had passed her doping test and she hoped “the Western media will change their bias and jealousy.”

Meanwhile, on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, the nearly 2.7 million comments about the embattled swimmer were overwhelming supportive and helped make her the biggest trending topic on the popular microfeed service as of Wednesday afternoon.

“Do they have to be so obvious with their envy?” wrote one poster of the West’s coverage of Ye’s victories.

“All medalists and other athletes are tested at the Games,” wrote another. “It’d be way better if everyone would shut the hell up unless the test finds anyone positive from doping.”

But for many netizens in China, solidarity with Ye has manifested itself in one simple play on her name that has spread around Weibo: “Ye Shiwen = Yes she wins.”

NBC News’ Tianzhou Ye and Joy Li contributed to this report