Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

Chinese President Hu Jintao is seen speaking at the opening of the 18th Communist Party Congress on a television in a subway train in Shanghai on Nov. 8.

BEIJING -- I arrived in Beijing for what the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, described as “one of the biggest political events in history.”

“Are you watching?” I asked my driver on the way in from the airport. He looked at me and laughed. “Why would I watch that?” he replied.

A little later I settled down in my hotel bar over a glass of Great Wall cabernet sauvignon.  “Are you watching the Congress?” I asked my server. Again that quizzical look. “Oh, I don’t care about that,” she replied, before slipping behind the bar and resuming whatever she was doing on her mobile phone, which judging by her concentration she did care about very much.

The 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has begun with great pomp and ceremony in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. It is important -- a once-in-a-decade leadership change at a time when the country is facing enormous challenges, from a faltering economy to rampant corruption that goes to the core of the party.

China launches once-in-a-decade changing of guard

But among many Chinese, away from the stuffy heart of this city (from which carrier pigeons have been banned, incidentally, as a security precaution), the meeting might as well be taking place on the moon, among green aliens with spiky heads.

That's how relevant it seems to them.

The official media has given it blanket coverage, while at the same time trying to limit discussion in China's vibrant social media -- slowing internet speeds and even blocking the Chinese translation for the 18th Congress from search engines.

Aside from the pigeon ban, taxis are required to keep their back windows locked, presumably to prevent the distribution of subversive pamphlets, and tiny remote-controlled aircraft have been outlawed.

Still, the party “will continue to inject vigor to national politics,” declared the Global Times at the weekend.

“Vigor” isn’t the first world that comes to mind when you see the line up of gray men (you’ll be hard pressed to find many woman near the top of the CPC) in gray suites, gathering mostly to dutifully endorse decisions already made.

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Much of the proceedings are behind closed doors and the main qualification for advancement in the party is to not the rock the boat. Opinions are dangerous; flamboyance can be fatal to a career in the CPC.

Diego Azubel / EPA

The party is expected to use the highly orchestrated event to persuade the nation's 1.3 billion people that it can provide another 10 years of economic growth and social stability while curbing corruption and nepotism.

The report from the retiring party boss and head of state, Hu Jintao, which kicked off the Congress, hailed as a masterpiece by Chinese newspapers, was of such length and mind-boggling tedium that initially it left analysts struggling to figure what precisely whether it was reformist, reactionary, liberal or conservative.

Probably all of the above.

Just ahead of Congress, I had embarked on a journey across the Beijing to test opinion. It was hardly scientific, but I figured I'd at least get a sense of what ordinary Chinese were thinking.

I started by bike in the narrow alleyways around the surviving hutongs in an older part of the city.

Here the residents are older too, and a question from a foreigner about the Communist Party, produces an embarrassed wave of the hand, or provokes a speedy retreat behind closed doors. Ordinary Chinese of a certain age have seen how capricious and brutal the party can be and know better than to openly discuss politics with a foreigner.

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An exception was an elderly man who stood bold upright and recited how China's new leaders would build a strong and prosperous country. But what of Xi Jinping, the man soon to be anointed leader. What does he stand for, how exactly will he do that, I asked. The door swung open and he too was gone.

I approached a man barbecuing some skewered lamb. He claimed not to understand my interpreter, though did I detect an extra touch of aggression with those skewers at the mention of the party?

I then took a taxi figuring that cabbies everywhere have an opinion. But not this one, shaking his head, waving his hand, and probably wishing his wheezing vehicle had an ejector seat. I pressed on. I know what President Obama listens to on his iPod, I explained, and what Mitt Romney has for breakfast. Did he think Xi Jinping has an iPod?

At that he just burst out laughing, and laughed, and laughed, until he dropped me at a Beijing university, where my luck changed.

Here almost all the youngsters I met had heard of Xi, but professed to know hardly anything about him. What does he stand for? Two young women looked blankly at each other. "We don’t know," they said in unison, as if this was the most stupid question they'd ever heard. Does Xi have kids? I asked another couple. "I don't know," said one. "And I don't care." said the other.

Another young man looked puzzled. "But we don't vote," he said, which I guess goes to the heart of the matter. Why should we care, he seemed to be saying, what's this process got to do with us?

Perhaps out of desperation, I did what a lot of Beijingers are doing these days and went to a fortune teller. He rumbled me immediately, and declared that he didn’t do politics, and that his crystal ball certainly didn't stretch to the Communist Party. "I don't know and I don’t care," he declared.

The party, at least its more perceptive members, do seem to recognize the challenges they -- and China -- face. But the prescription for these ills appears to be more of the same. Its still a brave and lonely voice that will call for greater openness, transparency and accountability.

The congress will end with the unveiling of the new leadership. Yet in spite of acres of fevered analysis from China-watchers, the reality is that we know virtually nothing about what Xi Jinping thinks about anything, let alone the secretive process by which he was selected.

Is he another grey and cautious techocrat or a closet reformer? Take your pick. We can all be experts in the face of the party's secrecy.

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On paper at least the Communist Party has 82 million members, but only a tiny clique make the real decisions, and there is an enormous gulf -- vast and growing -- between them and the people it is supposed to represent, a gulf filled increasingly with cynicism and distrust.

Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

President Hu Jintao, seen on a television in a motorcycle repair shop in Shanghai, called for stepped-up political reform and a revamped economic model as the Communist Party opened a historic congress to usher in a new slate of leaders.

China has changed dramatically since the party last changed its leaders a decade ago -- from the economy to the thriving social media that's such a thorn in the side of the leadership, and where the timing of the leadership change, so soon after the raucous U.S. election has provoked many an uncomfortable (for the party) comparison.

The dynamism elsewhere in China is in stark contrast with the ossified spectacle on display this week in the Great Hall. Those carrier pigeons are the least of the party’s problems.

KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters

Frenemies? Chinese and U.S. flags fly along Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House on Tuesday ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit.

By Eric Baculinao, NBC News Beijing Bureau Chief 

BEIJING – As Chinese President Hu Jintao embarks on his landmark state visit to the United States, there is a lot of chatter on the Internet and among academics in China about the superpowers’ meeting.

The range of opinions in China reflects the wide variety of issues that have complicated bilateral relations of late: from Taiwan, Tibet and human rights to currency, trade and military rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region.

But while the official message from Beijing is that the state visit presents a good opportunity for the two countries to meet and readjust relations, one noted scholar has bluntly called for an end to the “superficial friendship” between the two countries.

High demands
Gauging public opinion in China is never a simple task. A cursory search for “Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S.” is stopped by the Great Firewall and met with a message that “your search is blocked in accordance with relevant laws.” 

But a more creative and neutral search for “Big Boss Hu’s visit” or “President’s visit to the U.S.” gives a clue to Chinese opinions about the state visit. Many expressed concerns over economic issues.

“Let’s see how many business orders Big Boss Hu will bring to the U.S. this time,” wrote one commentator.

“The visit will be successful if the U.S. halts arms sale to Taiwan, stops pressuring China on currency issues, and lifts the ban on high-tech exports to China,” said another. “It will be a failure if only a $20 billion business deal is signed.”

Another expressed outrage over the currency issue. “The dollar-renminbi exchange rate is approaching the 6.5 level!...This shows how the ******* party is really good at fawning over the U.S.”

Key word: cooperation
Nevertheless, the official theme from Beijing seems to be acknowledging “differences” between the two countries, but emphasizing “cooperation.” Hu even weighed in himself to try to set a positive tone for his visit.

In written answers to questions from the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Hu called for an end to the anachronistic “zero-sum Cold War mentality” in China-U.S. relations and proposed increased cooperation.

“The visit’s timing is very good after Sino-American relations experienced a year of wind and rain,” Prof. Song Guoyou of the Center for American Studies told the Dazhong-Qilu Evening News. “It’s time to adjust.” 

Fudan University professor Wu Xinbo also told the state-run Global Times newspaper that Hu’s visit “should make clear that the basic tone of Sino-U.S. relations is cooperation rather than competition or confrontation.” 

However, Beijing Institute of Technology professor Hu Xingdou, a prolific blogger on economic and political issues, was a little more skeptical of how much relations can improve.

“China-U.S. relations can never be too good or too bad,” said Hu. “They need each other but they can’t become true friends because of fundamental differences in their political and values systems,” he said. “The visit will only have short-term influence.”

Danger of ‘pretending to be friends’
But the most provocative view from China was aired by Prof. Yan Xuetong, the highly-respected director of the Institute of International Relations at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University.

“The visit is very important because the relationship is declining and the visit should aim to stabilize the relationship,” he told NBC News.

Still Yan, an author and expert on international security issues, argues that the policy of China and the U.S. “pretending to be friends” is destabilizing and dangerous and can only lead to miscalculations and conflict.

“Certain people might argue that the mutual delusion of friendship serves the interests of both China and the United States, but this argument lacks hard evidence and logical support,” Yan said.

“Being superficial enemies would be a better choice for China and the United States to stabilize and improve their relations if they have no way to become real friends,” Yan wrote in the Chinese Journal of International Politics late last year. “If we look in detail at the strategic interests of China and the United States, we find more confrontational and conflicting interests than common and complementary ones.”  

“To enlarge mutually favorable interests, China and the United States should give up the policy of pretending to be friends. A policy of clarity serves their interests better than one that is ambiguous,” he argued.

No one hopes that China and the U.S. become real enemies, he said, but if they cannot become real friends, then “superficial enmity” is more stabilizing than “superficial friendship.”

“Inconsistency between knowledge and the reality is a main destabilizing factor in bilateral relations,” he warned.

NBC News researcher He Xin contributed to this report.

BEIJING – It’s the day before the start of President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States, and policymakers, activists and pundits on both sides of the Pacific are hard at work trying to steer the message of the upcoming talks.

Xinhua/Ju Peng

The Chinese president’s first state visit with full diplomatic honors is being put under a microscope since it comes as the two nations are at a crossroads on a slew of sensitive issues ranging from currency valuation to human rights to regional security.

After a patchy 2010 in which Sino-U.S. relations were rocked by U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, allegations of currency manipulation of the yuan by China and the detention of Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, both sides are eager to strike a conciliatory tone to show that their relationship is still strong and productive.

However, the desire for a successful visit has not stopped each side from posturing, as both try to control the message on an increasingly convoluted range of issues.

At the cabinet/minister level, the verbal barbs started up last week with a speech by Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner. He called on China again to allow the undervalued renminbi to rise and to curb intellectual property violations. Taking a similar tack on intellectual property, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke warned of shifts in “global stability” due to trade imbalances and a lack of transparency in Chinese governmental decisions.

Unperturbed, Chinese finance ministers responded with concern over U.S. monetary policy and suggested that the undervalued renminbi is more a product of a weaker U.S. dollar and strong Chinese manufacturing competitiveness. At a press briefing last week in Beijing, Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai went further and stated that this week his government is seeking a “positive statement” on the security of China’s assets in America.

As CNBC noted: “China has amassed the world's biggest stockpile of foreign exchange reserves at $2.85 trillion, an estimated two-thirds of which is invested in U.S. assets.”

Meanwhile at the business level, Silicon Valley businesses – the tech-hub that is generating much of the innovation desired by Beijing – aired its grievances this week, arguing that bureaucratic hurdles in China has limited their growth opportunities.

U.S. companies have said their attempts to compete on the mainland have been thwarted by procurement policies that favor domestic companies and their “indigenous innovation,” as well as required technology swaps and partnerships with domestic companies as pre-conditions for entry into the China market.

At the grassroots level, human rights advocates representing a range of issues from Tibetan freedom to the Taiwan issue have called for protests during Hu’s visit. President Obama himself met five human rights advocates last week in a bid to learn more about the conditions in China. (Hu’s April 2006 visit to the White House was marred by protestors from the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned in China).

Not to be out done, Hu delivered a withering critique of American fiscal policy, saying that the international currency system in which the U.S. dollar remains the primary reserve currency is a “product of the past.”

It was also announced late last week that China’s State Council Information Office would be running advertisements on American television during Hu’s visit. The ads are designed to show the softer side of China with the help of celebrities like Jacky Chan, Yao Ming and Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei.

All of this should lead to a busy week of China coverage we haven’t seen since the halcyon days of last year’s “Why do great nations fail?” political ad.

By Eric Baculinao, NBC News Beijing Bureau Chief

 BEIJING – It seems like a perfect diplomatic dichotomy.

Philippe Wojazer / Reuters

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes China's President Hu Jintao as he arrives at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Thursday for the start of a three-day visit in France.

While President Barack Obama is setting off to Asia to expand America’s partnerships and alliances, China’s President Hu Jintao is on his own journey to expand China’s financial and business clout in Europe.
 
The simultaneous maneuvers come amid a crescendo of warnings in China’s state-controlled media that America is executing a new “containment” policy that seeks to use diplomatic, economic and military tools to curb China’s development, notwithstanding official denials from the United States.
 
“The U.S. wants to contain China through making use of the contradictions between China and some Asia countries and interfering in Asian affairs,” warned a recent commentary in the 21st Century Business Herald.

In light of the divergent trips and a surge in diplomatic spates over everything from currency valuation to rare earth minerals, China analysts weighed in on what may lie ahead for the rivalry between the world’s two economic superpowers.

China on lookout for more friends
While Obama will visit India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan – but not China – and attend two international summits, Hu is visiting France and Portugal at a difficult juncture for those Eurozone countries.

On Thursday, Hu inked billions of dollars worth of business deals during his state visit to France and was greeted with full military honors by President Nicolas Sarkozy. The deals included $14 billion for Airbus planes, which could seriously erode Boeing’s lead in the China market, as well as telecom and nuclear investments. 

Hu heads to Portugal Saturday where he will reportedly offer to buy government bonds that will be “conducive” to economic recovery and growth, according to one Chinese official. Portugal is faced with the danger of a Greek-style debt crisis.
 
For China to court Europe is a natural thing, according to Francois Godement, senior policy fellow of the European Council of Foreign Relations.  “It’s China’s first market and it also needs to hedge some of its resources, too much is invested in dollars,” he told NBC News.
 
By investing in European public debt, which commands higher interest rate, China is “indirectly helping to maintain the unity of the Eurozone,” Godement added. “In the process, China will also represent to these countries – Greece, Spain, Italy and perhaps Portugal – that its support is also political, and requires some payback.”

“It’s time to help the Europeans, especially because the Eurozone is going through some difficulties,” said Victor Zhikai Gao, director of the China Association of International Studies and former interpreter for the late leader Deng Xiaoping, who led China in opening up to a market-based economy.
 
“China certainly wants to be friends with Europe,” Gao said in a telephone interview from London. “China is always concerned about not having as many friends as possible in this world.” 
 
Nurturing U.S.-China ties
China also wants to be friends with the U.S., according to Gao, but the relations will need “nurturing, care and incentives.”

“China’s economy will likely quadruple again in the coming two decades, meaning it will overtake and become bigger than the U.S.” Gao predicted. “How the U.S. comes to terms with the prospect of China growing and overtaking the U.S. is a major issue.” He noted that since World War II there has never been as much of a possibility that another country could overtake the U.S. as the world’s superpower as now.

Gao argued that China’s ascendancy could be a boon for the U.S., if they work together.

“If the U.S. and China can view each other as friends and partners, then there will be no insurmountable difficulties in this world,” he said, citing the global issues of terrorism, extremism, fundamentalism, nuclear  proliferation and anti-Americanism as requiring China-U.S. cooperation.
 
“But if the U.S. views China with suspicion and tries to ‘contain’ China, then not only will ‘containment’ not succeed but the real enemies of the U.S. will congratulate themselves,” he argued.

When asked about how China views U.S. involvement in the region, Gao said that China has never denied that the U.S. has legitimate interests in that part of the world.
 
“What China objects to is the projection of U.S. forces to interfere in China’s internal affairs, like on Taiwan,” he explained.
 
“It is true that China has territorial disputes with Southeast Asia countries – Vietnam, Japan, India – but it is much better to let the countries involved sort things out,” he suggested. “If the U.S. sides with some countries, the U.S. creates disincentives for improved relations between the U.S. and China.”

“The better strategy is to incentivize China and leverage China’s potential,” he added.
 
‘Pessimistic on balance’
For Richard Betts, director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University in New York, the issue of “containment” is a strategic choice.
 
“If other powers like the USA want to keep China from developing a stronger strategic role in East Asia as it becomes wealthier, that will amount to ‘containment,’” he said.
 
Asked about the prospects of a U.S.-China confrontation, Betts conceded he was “pessimistic on balance …  An optimistic outcome is quite possible, but it will not be the natural default option.”
 
“To avoid confrontation, one of three possibilities will have to” play out, he added: “ China’s rise falters and the country suffers a reversal of fortunes and does not rise to superpower status; China rises but gives up the normal ambitions of a great power to control events that affect its interests; or other countries, especially the USA, Japan, Russia and India, concede China’s dominance in East Asia and do not contest its preferences for resolving the status of Taiwan or the Spratly and Diaoyu/Senkaku islands.”
 
“Any of these options is possible, but none seems likely at the moment,” he said.
 
“The West cannot have its cake and eat it too, meaning have amicable relations with China but simultaneously keep China in a subordinate position in the balance of power and block China from resolving disputes in its favor,” Betts added.

Time will tell how the various diplomatic dances play out.