BEIJING – Over 1,000 chanting demonstrators took to the streets of the southern Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday to protest plans for a state oil refinery - the latest sign of popular anger at environmental pollution.

Some carried signs emblazoned with, “PX… Get out of Kunming,” in reference to paraxylene, a chemical used to make plastic products. If inhaled or absorbed, paraxylene can damage to the central nervous system.

Protesters who spoke to NBC News put the number of demonstrators at around 1,000, while The Associated Press reported that about 2,500 had attended. There was no explanation for the discrepancy and Kunming police declined to comment.  

The Kunning demonstration - the second in the city this month - comes amid growing anger against pollution and environmental degradation brought on by unchecked economic development throughout China.

"We don't need speedy development. What we need is a healthy and peaceful country," Kunming resident Liu Yuncheng told The Associated Press. "I still haven't given birth to a baby. I want to be pregnant and I want a healthy baby."

China National Petroleum Corp’s (CNPC) construction of paraxylene-producing petrochemical plants has sparked protests from Ningo to Xiamen. In the case of Ningbo, thousands of residents clashed with police in October, eventually prompting officials there to halt construction of an installation.

Protesters in Kunming told NBC News by telephone that they had tried to march towards city hall, but were stopped by police who formed a security cordon around them.  By mid-afternoon, demonstrators had filtered through the blocks by using side streets, effectively ending the protest.

In Kunming, local government and company officials have tried to assuage health concerns by assuring residents that the plant would maintain strict environmental standards, and not necessarily produce paraxylene.

These assurances did not assuage many residents’ fears.

“I don’t know if this protest will be effective or not,” one organizer said. “But if the government continues to build this plant, I’ll keep protesting.

Another protester said she had been pulled in for questioning by local authorities this week for about nine hours. She did not participate in Thursday’s protest.

Officials from CNPC were not available for comment.

According to the South China Morning Post, officials successfully blocked a similar protest against another proposed CNPC refinery in the provincial capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu.  Government officials announced an earthquake drill and effectively sealed off a number of landmarks where the rally had been planned, the newspaper reported. 

The Associated Press, and NBC News’ Le Li and Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.

Related:

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Le Li / NBC News

Jiang Yuhong, with her husband and son, at the Carrot Organic Farm in Shunyi, China.

BEIJING – Shopping for groceries is a painful process for Tan Yinghong, a mother in her mid-30s. Just to buy meat, vegetables and milk for her 7-year-old son she has to pick her way through a minefield of possible perils – fake lamb, diseased pork, toxic ginger, tainted milk and unsafe bottled water.  

So after years of scandals and the government's inability to clean up the food supply chain, this spring the former high school teacher took matters into her own hands and signed a lease on about a quarter of an acre of farmland on the outskirts of Beijing with six other families.

It ends up urban gardening isn't just for hipsters in Brooklyn and San Francisco.

Tan and her friends plan to start by raising their own chickens and vegetables, and eventually grow all of their own food. The tender shoots of their first vegetable crop of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions have just broken through the soil.  

“I was so excited to see seeds growing from the earth,” Tan said.

Tan is part of a growing group who are tackling the food safety issues in China by raising it themselves.

Not much faith in ‘organic’ label
In 2006, when Tan moved to Beijing from a town near the southwestern city of Chongqing with her husband, she expected an adjustment to fast-paced city life.  She did not foresee spending countless hours looking for safe food for her son.

A 2008 scandal involving melamine-tainted milk and infant formula was the first wakeup call. As a result of the chemical melamine being added to the milk and baby formula, an estimated 300,000 were sickened and six infants died. Two people from one milk company were executed in the aftermath, but no new regulations were put in place.

After that, Tan switched to imported and organic food. But a rash of scams, including fake Evian destroyed her trust in products that were supposedly imported.

And Tan was skeptical that the vegetables marked with green "organic" stickers were really any safer.

She’s not alone. A recent survey by Insight China Magazine and Tsinghua University indicates almost 70 percent of China’s consumers feel insecure about food safety.

The government regulates organic labels, but farmers must pay a fee to apply for the certificates, and many Chinese consumers don’t believe the market is regulated strictly enough to ensure the veracity of producers' claims.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported Thursday that the State Council, China's cabinet, recently ordered local government departments to step up checks on meat and processed meat products, and carry out detailed inspections of rural factories, workshops and warehouses as well as private slaughterhouses.

Beijing has repeatedly called for greater inspections of food processing facilities, but they haven’t had much success building consumer trust in the past. The latest clampdown encourages local governments to offer rewards to individuals who inform on illegal activities

Le Li / NBC News

The greenhouses at Carrot Organic Farm in Shunyi, China.

Carrot Organic Farm
Like Tan, Jiang Yuhong, 37, became aware of the food safety when she was pregnant in 2010. She decided to stick to organic food sold at Walmart, which many consumers trust more because it’s a foreign company. While Jiang barely considered the cost, she just thought the organic vegetables didn't taste right.

Eventually she moved from the center of Beijing to the suburbs of Shunyi and built a house beside a plot of land where she could grow her own vegetables. 

After two years of farming, Jiang realized many of her friends actually enjoyed working in her fields during weekend gatherings. She saw a business opportunity and went big.

So she founded Carrot Organic Farm on 124 acres in January 2012. 

The Carrot Organic Farm has 207 greenhouses; each is about 8,000 square feet and is divided into 23 units of about 350 square feet. Customers can rent as much space as they like, but the minimum is one unit. And it’s pricey:  the minimum membership fee is about $600, roughly a month’s salary of a recent graduate in Beijing.

For those too busy or not inclined to spend spare time tending crops, the farm provides workers and door-to-door delivery. Jiang decided not to pay for the organic certification, and instead lets customers watch their food grow themselves. She installed surveillance cameras to allow clients to monitor their vegetables at any time. 

Her bet paid off. Within a year of opening, she's recouped her initial investment and her scheme has 3,000 members. Given the cost, most of her clients are members of the elite, as well as international tech companies like Oracle and Panasonic.

Jiang now divides her time between the company, her own farm and her son. She says she gets just five or six hours of sleep a night and works straight through the weekends, but has no complaints.

On her phone Jiang scrolls through pictures of her son, running in her ample backyard.    

“Look at the way he is kicking,” Jiang said. “He is organic.” 

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related links:

Food supply under assault as climate heats up

'Get out': Over 1,000 take to the streets in China to protest oil refinery

A Nixon returns to China, retracing steps of 1972 visit

This story was originally published on Tue May 14, 2013 4:51 PM EDT

BEIJING -- Christopher Cox Nixon began retracing the steps of his grandfather's historic 1972 visit to China by walking across Tiananmen Square with an entourage that included several former Nixon aides.

"The stark contrast between then and now," marveled Jack Brennan, who had accompanied President Richard Nixon to China as his Marine Corp aide. "The colors, and nobody smiled back then."

As if on cue, a young Chinese woman in a bright dress, big white-rimmed sunglasses and a smile that seemed as broad as the Tiananmen Gate, bounded forward requesting a photograph. Although not with Brennan, but with the young Nixon's glamorous wife, Andrea Catsimatidis, clad in a striking red dress.

Catsimatidis, daughter of supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis -- a candidate for mayor of New York -- duly obliged, as she would several more times as the group strolled on through the Forbidden City.

It is likely that none of the Chinese fans had a clue who she was -- and they may never have heard of either of the Nixons. But it seemed a cool thing to do, uploading the photo from a smartphone to one of the many social networking sites patronized by young Chinese.

Yes, this country has changed.

Andy Wong / AP

In this combo photo, U.S. President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Nixon have light moments at a huge stone elephant, left, on Feb. 24, 1972; while at right, Nixon's grandson Christopher Cox and his wife Andrea Catsimatidisat visit the same spot at the Ming Tomb, north of Beijing, on  May 4, 2013.

President Nixon called his historic 1972 visit "the week that changed the world," ending 25 years of a diplomatic freeze between the two countries. The young Nixon’s visit marked the centenary of his grandfather's birth.

"What an incredible change from 40 years ago," said the young Nixon, a 34-year-old investment banker with political ambitions of his own. "Just look at the personal freedoms, not political freedoms, but personal freedoms -- how people dress, how people interact with each other."

The 1972 trip is credited with opening China to the world. It was also an important Cold War play, driving a deeper wedge between China and the Soviet Union. Nixon was fiercely anti-communist, and the term "Nixon going to China" became a catchphrase for an unexpected action by a politician.

"We should never keep a billion of the world's most able and hard-working people in isolation," said his grandson. "I think that he [President Nixon] would have expected to see the Chinese people so prosperous and industrious."

The anniversary trip was designed to stress the positives of both the Nixon administration and the Chinese Communist Party, which gave the group red-carpet treatment as they traveled last week to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

One highlight was a banquet at the Great Hall of the People, hosted by State Councilor Yang Jiechi, China's top foreign policy official, and designed to mirror a banquet thrown for President Nixon.

A big screen at the front of the room described the 1972 summit as the "most important event in the history of international diplomacy in the 20^th century."

Andy Wong / AP

Christopher Cox, grandson of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, second from right, and his wife Andrea Catsimatidis, third from right, pose with Chinese tourists as they tour the Great Wall of China at Badaling, north of Beijing, on May 4. A delegation led by Cox is here to commemorate Nixon's centennial by retracing his 1972 historical visit to China.

Among the Chinese dignitaries was Tang Wensheng, who had been interpreter for Chairman Mao Zedong back then. Mao had suffered a stroke a few days before Nixon arrived, and she said the Chinese side was worried about whether Mao would be well enough. But the ailing Mao was able to meet Nixon.

Robert McFarlane, former national security adviser to President Nixon, said the summit set the scene for extensive sharing of privileged information.

"We shared the most sensitive intelligence about the Soviet Union with China, intelligence we didn't even share with our allies," he said.

He said this was designed as a mark of sincerity, but it also served Washington's purpose of further poisoning relations between the two communist giants.

Back then, of course, relations between China and the U.S. were fairly simple -- there weren't any.

Today China is a much more open, yet complicated, place. Relations can be tense and difficult. The two are economic and political rivals, and U.S. officials are much more regular visitors as they grapple with a host of issues from cyberspying to North Korea. 

"The problems haven't become any easier," McFarlane said. "Issues like cybersecurity, regional territorial disagreements between China and her neighbors and certainly terrorism -- all of these look daunting."

As the toasts got underway, there was much talk at the banquet of reviving the spirit of 1972.

"It’s important for the two countries to talk to each other frankly," McFarlane said.

Related links: 

Chairman Mao's granddaugher makes China's rich list 

China labels US the 'real hacking empire' after Pentagon report 

'Charlie Two Shoes': A story of wartime loyalty and friendship

Wang Ming Yi / AFP

Kong Dongmei, the granddaughter of Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong, during a visit to Taipei, Taiwan, in 2009.

BEIJING -- Anywhere else in the world, placement on a rich list would be cause for celebration.

Not so in China.

For China's richest, being listed on wealth reports can be deeply undesirable, inviting unwanted extra scrutiny from tax collectors to a general public increasingly suspicious of the origins of the wealth that has poured into the mainland from uncertain corners over the last few decades.

The latest person to find herself facing this tough media spotlight: Kong Dongmei, the granddaughter of late Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong.

With assets estimated at around $815 million, Kong and her husband, Chen Dongsheng, placed 242nd on Chinese magazine New Fortune's 500 Rich List for 2013 released this week.

The specific kind of attention attracted by such an appearance has many nicknames. One Chinese author dubbed it "The Curse of Forbes"; others have called these wealth reports "sha zhu bang" or "kill pig list."

Whatever you call it, there is no denying that the lists can be perilous for China's wealthy. A study last year entitled "The Price of Being a Billionaire in China: Evidence Based on Hurun Rich List," found that companies listed on the notorious "Hurun Rich List" had their market values rapidly decline within three years – victims of increased tax audits, cutting off of government subsidies and financial investigations.

Indeed, many who have found themselves among the lucky few have soon after landed in jail as media and government interest shifted to their business dealings.

'Honest and clean'
The irony that the granddaughter of the country's founding Communist leader is now one of its wealthiest citizens was not lost on the public here -- that despite carefully cultivating a veneer of modest living, Mao's offspring have in fact been profiting handsomely.

In 2009, another grandchild of Mao, Major General Mao Xinyu, told Chinese media, "The Mao Family heritage is honest and clean. None of the Mao family members have entered business. They all live on their modest salaries."

Meanwhile Kong authored four bestsellers about her grandfather and even ran a bookstore that specialized in Communist culture.

The revelation that Mao's granddaughter has risen to become one of China's wealthiest citizens only confirms what many in this country increasingly believe: Patronage is the path to wealth in today's Chinese society.

That perception is backed up by a recent survey conducted by Tsinghua University and reported in the Beijing Evening Post that found that college graduates in China who had a parent serving as a government official were found to earn 15 percent more than their peers.

The study also found that children of well-connected families were more likely to be recruited into sectors like finance, government agencies and international organizations, while other graduates ended up in industries like manufacturing and construction.

Related stories:

• Chinese officials embrace 'low-key luxury' to dodge corruption crackdown
• Chinese ex-police detained while trying to stamp out corruption
• More China coverage on our Behind The Wall blog

Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images

A Chinese paramilitary officer rides a scooter in Beijing on Wednesday. Beijing dismissed an annual Pentagon report that accused it of widespread cyberspying on the U.S. government, rejecting it as an "irresponsible

BEIJING -- China on Wednesday accused the United States of sowing discord between it and its neighbors after the Pentagon said Beijing is using espionage to fuel its military modernization, branding Washington the "real hacking empire.”

The latest salvo came a day after China's foreign ministry dismissed as groundless a Pentagon report that accused China for the first time of trying to break into U.S. defense computer networks.

The Pentagon also cited progress in Beijing's effort to develop advanced-technology stealth aircraft and to build an aircraft carrier fleet to project power further offshore.

The People's Liberation Army Daily called the report a "gross interference in China's internal affairs.”

"Promoting the ‘China military threat theory’ can sow discord between China and other countries, especially its relationship with its neighboring countries, to contain China and profit from it," the newspaper said in a commentary that was carried on China's Defense Ministry website.

The United States is "trumpeting China's military threat to promote its domestic interests groups and arms dealers,” the newspaper said, adding that it expects "U.S. arms manufacturers are gearing up to start counting their money.”

The remarks in the newspaper underscore the escalating mistrust between China and the United States over hacking, now a top point of contention between Washington and Beijing.

A U.S. computer security company, Mandiant, said in February a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks that targeted the United States and stole data from more than 100 companies.

That set off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

China has said repeatedly that it does not condone hacking and is the victim of hacking attacks -- most of which it says come from the United States.

"As we all know, the United States is the real 'hacking empire' and has an extensive espionage network," the People's Daily, a newspaper regarded as a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said in a commentary.

"In recent years, the United States has continued to strengthen its network tools for political subversion against other countries,” the article said.

"Cyber weapons are more frightening than nuclear weapons," the People's Daily said. "To establish military hegemony on the Internet by repeatedly smearing other countries is a dangerous and wrong path to take and will ultimately end up in shooting themselves in the foot."

Related links:

Report: China snooping around Pentagon computers

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Analysis: As cyberthreat looms, here's what really matters

BEIJING – Next weekend, an 80-year-old Chinese American called Charlie Tsui will give the commencement address at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri.

The events which shaped Tsui's life took place well before any of the 270 students receiving their bachelor degrees were born, though his story of loyalty and friendship easily bridges the generational divide.

Tsui was born in a village just outside the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, which is where he first met U.S. Marines, stationed there at the end of the World War II. He lived in a hut just beyond the barbed wire of the Marine compound. It was a time of immense turmoil in China, which was gripped by a civil war that would eventually lead to the Communists taking over in 1949.

Tsui would bring the Marines boiled eggs and warm peanuts from his village.

The Marines adopted him, gave Tsui food and clothes, taught him English and paid for him to go to the American school in the city. They also gave him a nickname: “Charlie Two Shoes,” since his original Chinese name, Tsui Chi Hsii, was tough to pronounce.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui, nicknamed "Charlie Two Shoes" as a child by the U.S. Marines who became like brothers to him in Qingdao, China after World War II.

"We were like brothers in the Marine Corps," he recalls. "We love each other, just like brother and sister."

But the Marines were not able to take Tsui with them when they left shortly before the Communists took control.

"Leaving him over there when I left in 1947, it was like leaving a wounded Marine behind," said Don Sexton, who was squad leader back then.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui as a child in Qingdao, China after World War II.

For years, the Marines heard nothing of Tsui, who was jailed and then kept under house arrest for seven years for refusing to denounce his Marine buddies.

In 1983, Tsui did manage to get a letter out, and NBC News was able to track him down. The timing was good, as China was opening up, and the Marines campaigned successfully to get him a visa for the US, his family joining him two years later. He was soon running a successful restaurant business in Chapel Hill, N.C., which of course was the scene over the years of many a Marine reunion.

But having gotten to the U.S., seemingly in the face of massive odds, he then faced a 17-year-battle with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He came close to deportation before gaining legal residency and ultimately citizenship under a 1992 law prompted by the Tiananmen Square massacre.

"He was one special person. Now he's like family," said Carl Frost, one of those Marines.

In 2002, Tsui was made an "honorary Marine" in an official ceremony at Camp Lejeune. 

Frost and Sexton were among the members of Tsui's Marine family who recently returned to Qingdao with Tsui for the first time since he left all those years ago. Also on the trip were students from the College of the Ozarks, which sponsored the visit. The college has a program that pairs students with American veterans, taking them back to their battlefields or military stations.

Today's Qingdao is a very different place, with modern glistening buildings and brash prosperity. NBC News also joined the trip as an at times bewildered Charlie Two Shoes sought out the landmarks of his childhood.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui and a group of his old Marine buddies return to Qingdao, China for the first time in 30 years.

"That was the cave where the Japanese stored their weapons," he said, pointing at the craggy rocks just beyond what is now a sports field, but had been a military parade ground, during the Japanese occupation of the city.

The old Marines barracks has long since been reclaimed by the city's university. "That's where I slept, up the end there," he said, pointing down a long corridor.

The old American School is now an elite kindergarten. Remarkably, Tsui's old family home still stands, though much expanded by the migration workers now living there. His village, Chukechuang, has become part of the city's sprawling suburbs. This is where he met an elder brother he'd thought was dead.

 "I was worried. He's alright. He's alright," he said, as the two stood gripping each other's hands.

When the Americans left, Tsui had moved into an orphanage run by nuns, which is where he developed a strong Christian faith, which he says kept him going through those hard times.

St. Michael's Cathedral, where he received his first communion, still stands - a city landmark. Tsui would walk 10 miles, there and back, to worship on Sundays until the Communists shut it down.

Tsui's return visit was during a big Chinese holiday. The beach and promenade at Qingdao was packed. For a moment Tsui was lost in thought, before recalling where the last of the American ships were loaded before leaving. Back then he thought he'd never see his Marine buddies again. But he never gave up hope.

Related links:

More NBC News reporting on China in Behind the Wall

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 4:40 PM EDT

Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

A new strain of bird flu identified in China "is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Assistant Director-General for Health Security, tells journalists at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

BEIJING – A new type of bird flu that has killed 22 people in China since March is one of the most deadly strains of influenza known, international health experts said on Wednesday. 

"This is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Assistant Director-General for Health Security. "We are at the beginning of our understanding of this virus."

The H7N9 strain appears to spread more easily to humans than SARS, a different virus that started killing people in Asia a decade ago, experts said. Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed around 800 people globally in 2003 before it was stopped.

"This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans," added Fukuda, who was speaking in Beijing alongside leading flu experts from around the world.  

The delegation from United States, Europe, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as China, have just concluded a week-long investigation that took them to affected areas in Shanghai and Beijing.

Little is known
The group of experts made an impressive display of international cooperation, but at the same time admitted just how little is known about the virus that has infected 108 people since March.

"We are at the very early stages of this investigation," said Dr. Nancy Cox, who heads Influenza Division at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "There's a lot to be learned.”

Most of the cases so far have been found in eastern China, around the Yangtze River delta, but in recent days there have been cases in central and northern China, including the capital. Most have been what Fukuda called "sporadic cases."  

He said a few family clusters have been found, which could be the result of exposure to the same source of virus, or limited person-to-person transmission.

But he said: "'Evidence so far is not sufficient to conclude there is person-to-person transmission. Moreover, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been found.”

The experts concluded that live poultry markets were the most likely source of infection.

The experts praised the swift action of Chinese authorities in closing live poultry markets, and said it was "encouraging" that there have been no new cases in Shanghai since its markets were shuttered.

And they called for continued international cooperation against a virus that doesn't recognize borders. 

"The risks of an outbreak situation are shared in a globalized world, where we are all interconnected," said Fukuda.

Legacy of distrust
All of those who spoke today went out of their way to praise the response and of the Chinese authorities and their openness and transparency. There is enormous sensitivity to any suggestion that their presence in China implies any criticism of local efforts.

China still lives in the shadow of the SARS pandemic, which began here a decade ago and killed hundreds worldwide, including in the U.S. It was made worse by an initial cover-up by the Chinese authorities.

"The response reflects earlier and strong investments in health and preparedness made by China," said Fukuda.

SARS also left a legacy of distrust, which was on display earlier in the week in Shanghai, when a press conference by the local government and WHO was gatecrashed by the daughter of a couple infected with H7N9. The 26-year-old demanded information about her quarantined father; her mother had died.

"The hospitals and medical staff appear friendly to members of the media like you but have responded in a lukewarm manner to inquiries from family members like me," she told the South China Morning Post. She was taken away by officials.

The experts said that in the absence of so much basic information about the extent of the public health risk it was critical to maintain a high level of awareness. They also noted that the weather is warming up in China, which might provide a bit of a respite and buy them some important time, since H7N9 -- in common with other influenza -- spreads less easily in the spring and summer.

Related:

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• Six more diagnosed with new bird flu in China
• Scientists ready to re-start bird flu experiments

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:19 AM EDT

Andy Wong / AP

A Chinese man walks past a huge screen reporting on the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three, including a Chinese student, and wounded more than 170 people, in Beijing, China on April 17.

SHENYANG, China – Any Chinese person following news in the United States this past week might be forgiven for thinking the country was populated by trigger-happy outlaws.

“America made me feel unsafe," screamed a headline on Phoenix Satellite TV, a popular cable outlet, quoting another Chinese student who attended the Boston Marathon.

But for many in the rustbelt city of Shenyang, where Lu Lingzi, one of the three people killed in the Boston Marathon bombings grew up, America remains a promised land for ambitious young students and their doting parents.

A father waiting to pick-up his only son outside the elite Yucai Northeast High School that Lu, 23, attended before going to the United States to study at Boston University, said he was saddened but would still send his child to study in the U.S. if he could.

“If [American] schools offer scholarships, I’ll send my son right away,” said Li, who asked to be identified only by his family name.  Lu was just extremely unlucky, he and others said.

This calm was tinged with sadness over the death and sympathy for Lu’s parents – especially given China’s controversial one-child policy which was implemented in 1979 to control population growth. As a result, parents hopes, dreams – and care in their old age – is all dependent on their one child, making their loss that much more painful.

“All these years of devotion are lost,” said Li, sighing and shaking his head.  “She was their only child.”

Nevertheless, Li took photos of a billboard outside the school’s gates advertising private classes to help prepare students for the SAT and TOEFL tests – essential to gain entry to American universities.  The billboard listed the names of four top American schools where alumni had won scholarships.

Le Li / NBC News

Parents wait to pick up their children at Yucai Northeast High School in Shenyang, China -- the school that Lu Lingzi, the Chinese victim of the Boston Marathon bombing attended. The parents stand next to billboards listing the names of top American schools where alumni won scholarships.

He remained upbeat despite the Chinese media’s portrayal of the United States as an ocean of violence after the deadly bombings that injured more than 170, sparked a citywide manhunt and prompted the lockdown of the entire city of Boston.

“Do you still want to take a risk and send your child to America?” was the lead of an article by the “Chinese News,” one of the country’s biggest state-run news agencies.

Li and other parents outside of Yucai – which admits the best and brightest students of the region – held fast to their faith in the American Dream.

In recent years, Chinese parents have been sending their kids to the U.S. in record numbers. The number of Chinese students in the United States grew by 23 percent to more than 194,000 in 2011-2012, according to the Institute of International Education.  At a quarter of all international students in U.S. universities and colleges, Chinese students make up the country’s largest group of foreign students, it said. 

Le Li / NBC News

Wang Wenyi, left, is a 15-year-old student at Yucai Middle High School in Shenyang, China, the same school Lu Lingzi, the Chinese victim of the Boston bombing attended. Referring to Lu's death, she said, "My dream is to study in US. Lu Lingzi is just extremely unlucky.

Dong Yu, a saleswoman of health products, has already decided that the United States will play a big role in her high-school-aged daughter’s future. Even though 16-year-old Zhang Yingchen is only a high school freshman, and will likely spend her undergraduate career in China, Dong is confident where her daughter will eventually end up.

“America,” she said with a smile.

For Zhang Dechang, Dong’s husband, America is still the safest place to be even after the Boston attacks.  Zhang feels the morals of Chinese society are crumbling—even at universities. Pointing around at the crowd he indicates that no one feels safe.

“Look around, all the parents come to school to pick up our child,” he Zhang. “What does that show you?”

In the apartment complex where Lu’s parents and grandparents live, which belongs to an elite provincial Communist Party training academy, many residents have studied in the United States.

Zhang Yuqi, a colleague of Lu Lingzi’s grandfather, wanted to send his granddaughter to the U.S. as well. America is a great country, he said.

His boss at Liaoning Provincial Party School told him that the American government treats its citizens very well, and even dubbed it a “true Communist society,” referring to the fact that everyone has an opportunity to succeed there. 
 
Similarly, Wang Qiong, a Yucai alum, who is currently working towards her doctorate at Rockefeller University, enjoys the U.S. for its transparency and lack of bureaucracy. 

“I came to the U.S. in 2003, after 9-11,” she told NBC by phone from the U.S. “I may return to China one day, but not because of safety concerns.”

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BEIJING – Dr. Jiang Rongmeng had no sooner walked out of the hospital door when he was mobbed by journalists. Camera crews jostled for position and microphones jousted in front of his face as he was bombarded with demands for information about the latest case of bird flu.

In Hong Kong or Taiwan this wouldn't be an unusual sight, but in Beijing it's rarer to see such raw displays of journalistic pushiness.

Rongmeng is Dr. Bird Flu -- he is the chief physician at the Center for Infectious Diseases at Beijing's Ditan Hospital. Since the weekend, when the capital announced its first case of the deadly new H7N9 virus -- the victim is a 7-year-old girl -- he's been a man in demand.

On Monday a 4-year-old boy was found to be carrying the virus -- though without symptoms, a discovery that has further puzzled experts. In both cases the parents were live poultry traders.

The girl was well enough Tuesday to leave intensive care; the boy remains in quarantine.

When asked if he expected more cases, Ronmeng said: "It is possible. It's certainly possible."

As the figures have ballooned -- 63 cases now with 14 deaths since March -- and spread from the eastern provinces, the authorities seem to have concluded after initial hesitation that openness is the best strategy.

It appears they have learned from the deadly SARS pandemic that struck 10 years ago. It started in China before spreading worldwide, killing hundreds, and was made worse by a government cover-up.

The World Health Organization has even praised the authorities for their new openness.

To some extent, though, they are bowing to the inevitable: H7N9 is the first such outbreak in the era of social media. Information is tougher to control, and when it's restricted, rumor can run rife.

One local newspaper reported that 13 people have been arrested for spreading rumors about the disease on social media.

But not everybody is convinced. At the Ditan Hospital, Yang Shengli scoffed at the suggestion of government openness.

"It's hard to say if the government really is telling the truth," she said, as she brought in her feverish 16-year-old daughter for tests. Thankfully it wasn't bird flu.

In Beijing the response to the first case, the 7-year-old girl, seems to have been quick and efficient. Her parents had reportedly bought their chickens in the east, in Tianjin, and some of those chickens were sold to the neighbor of the 4-year-old boy hospitalized Tuesday.

Health authorities quickly followed the chicken trail, and when NBC arrived in the boy's village on the outskirts of Beijing Monday, loudspeakers were calling on anybody to come forward if they had bought chickens from the neighbor or the boy's parents.

Officials in white coats and masks were disinfecting the streets and roadblocks had been set up in and out of the village. Cars were searched, and even frozen poultry was confiscated.

So far there is no evidence that the H7N9 virus spreads from human to human, although there is one ambiguous case of a husband and wife in Shanghai that is causing concern.

One big challenge for the authorities is that chickens carrying the virus do not appear to show any signs of sickness. And the symptomless 4-year-old is also creating more uncertainty.

But there are no signs of panic -- only worry, with sales of chicken pretty much drying up and neighboring countries on alert.

"We absolutely should not be panicking," said Dr. Tristan Evely, medical director of the International SOS China, a Beijing clinic. "But high vigilance and monitoring of the situation is absolutely crucial at this point of time."

Related links: 

It started with a cough: Deadly China bird flu outbreak raises fears of pandemic

Deaths from new bird flu underscore grim fears, reports show

US rushes to make vaccine against new bird flu -- just in case

New H7N9 bird flu has officials worried about skimpy resources

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:05 AM EDT

AFP – Getty Images

Chinese authorities have closed some live bird markets in an attempt to stop the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu. A vendor, above, washed a chicken stall in a poultry market in Hefei, China, shortly before it was due to be closed Thursday.

BEIJING -- It began in late February when an 87-year-old man started coughing up phlegm. A high fever followed, he struggled to breathe and was dead just 13 days later.

His death in Shanghai, China, was one of 13 fatalities out of 41 known cases to date of a new form of bird flu that experts warn may pose a "serious human health risk."

On Saturday, China's center for disease control announced the first case in Beijing, and outside of eastern China. The seven-year-old girl, whose parents work in the live poultry trade, was stable in a hospital in the capital, media reports said.

Around the world, scientists are now beginning to examine samples of the virus with a significant question in mind: Could this strain of the disease cause a global pandemic?

This international network of scientists keeps constant watch for good reason.

In 1918 and 1919, a flu pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people, more than the total death toll of World War I, more in a year than the Black Death of 1347 to 1351. More recently, an H1N1 swine flu pandemic was blamed for more than 284,500 human deaths worldwide between April 2009 and August 2010.

So far, the signs are that this is a localized outbreak. The number of cases is low and the virus -- an H7N9 strain -- does not appear to be capable of jumping from one person to another.

But each case represents a chance for the virus to mutate into one that is highly infectious in humans. And it is an unusual strain -- normally avian diseases make birds sick first, giving an early warning sign, but this one does not.

Scientists have established it is from an "avian reservoir" but still don't know the precise source. Chinese officials have dismissed suggestions of a connection with the large number of dead pigs and other animals found recently in rivers.

Many in China are understandably worried, with some deciding to avoid eating chicken, even though it poses no threat if properly cooked.

KFC’s parent company Yum reported on Wednesday that sales in its Chinese restaurants had dropped by 13 percent in March, saying “publicity associated with avian flu in China has had a significant, negative impact.”

Even Jiangsu Zoo, just north of Shanghai, reportedly stopped feeding chicken to animals such as lions and tigers and started giving them a traditional medicinal herb called ban lan gen.

Xie Li, an accountant in Shanghai, admitted she was “kind of nervous.”

“Now, we only eat vegetables," she said. "My daughter's school is measuring students' temperatures. We were told that we should eat less eggs or not touch eggs because they might have some excrement from chickens."

But others in the city of 23 million people were more sanguine.

Yan Zhanlin, a 40-year-old businessman, said he was “not scared, because there are not many cases, and the number of deaths is not high” and the virus had not yet spread between people.

“Today, I went to a train station, and I only saw few people wearing masks,” he said.

But even he said he had stopped eating “poultry, pork and other meat.”

Tang, a company manager in his late 20s, who declined to give his full name, was also relatively unconcerned.

“I do not fear [the virus] at all. It is just a kind of flu, and will pass quickly,” he said. Avoiding poultry was “not too bad, because it forces us to eat vegetables and fish, which are nutritious,” he added.

'Watching very carefully'
Perhaps in a sign of the country's nervousness, People's Liberation Army Colonel Dai Xu claimed the U.S. was behind the outbreak, saying the U.S. had used "bio-psychological weapons" to cause the deadly 2003 Sars outbreak and the current flu one, The South China Morning Post reported.

Such allegations aside, this apparently local problem is being treated seriously on a global scale.

Samples of the virus – or non-infectious nucleic acid from it — are being sent to scientists in up to 140 national influenza centers recognized by the World Health Organization, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Work has already started in the U.S. to make a vaccine against the new strain -- just in case.

Scientist John McCauley, of the U.K.’s National Institute for Medical Research, received his consignment on Thursday.

“We’re watching very carefully the events there [in China] because we are aware although there’s no human-to-human transmission, these are unusual infections people have been getting from an avian reservoir,” he said.

“China will need to identify the source and hopefully be able to control the cross-species transmission,” he said. “We’re watching very carefully to see how it does.”

“In the meantime, the national influenza centers around the world are developing their ability to detect this newly emerging virus” and also working on vaccines, McCauley said.

Experts needed to find out how vaccines would perform “in case this virus becomes pandemic,” he said.

Coincidentally, John Oxford, a professor of virology and an expert on the 1918 flu pandemic, was in Shanghai about eight weeks ago -- roughly the same time that the elderly man first fell ill – for a meeting about hygiene, important in the fight against viruses such as flu.

He said the situation in China was “getting a little more worrying.”

“I don’t like the sound of it. Every day I open up the reports and find out someone else has died,” he said. “I just don’t like to see the figures going up day after day.”

“So far there’s no human-to-human transmission. What’s tomorrow going to bring, what’s the next day going to bring? You don’t know and I don’t know,” he added.

But Oxford, of the U.K's Queen Mary, University of London, stressed there was “no need for anyone to start flapping at the moment.”

“I don’t think we should start thinking of 1918 scenarios, definitely not,” he said.

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Officials from the Center for Food Safety get a blood sample from a chicken imported from mainland China at a border checkpoint in Hong Kong on Thursday.

A group of Chinese scientists, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, also warned that the “pandemic potential of these novel avian-origin viruses should not be underestimated.”

“Severe avian influenza A (H7N9) infections, characterized by high fever and severe respiratory symptoms, may pose a serious human health risk,” it added. “We are concerned by the sudden emergence of these infections and the potential threat to the human population.”

However – mirroring the split on the streets of Shanghai – other experts were less worried.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a microbiology professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and principal investigator for the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis, said while it was “too early to be able to conclude anything …  the probabilities are very low” that a global pandemic is looming.

He was comforted by the lack of a surge in the numbers of people with the disease.

“It’s not that it’s increasing by ten times per week, I think right now the number of cases is what you would have expected from the original numbers,” he said.

“Right now there are no major indications to become highly alarmed.”

Ian Johnston reported from London.

Related:

Deaths from new bird flu underscore grim fears, reports show

US rushes to make vaccine against new bird flu -- just in case

New H7N9 bird flu has officials worried about skimpy resources

This story was originally published on Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:47 PM EDT