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

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:

• A new openness as new bird flu virus spreads in China
• 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

News Analysis

BEIJING -- There was confusion at the China-North Korea border Thursday after Chinese tour operators halted trips into the North.

Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

Two men wait Thursday for dispatch at a customs port in the Chinese border city of Dandong. The largest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

It wasn't clear whether the instruction to do so came from the Chinese authorities, the North Koreans, or was made by the nervous operators themselves.

But it mirrored a wider confusion over Chinese policy toward Pyongyang, which depends on Beijing for food and fuel, as well as diplomatic support.

As North Korea readies what is thought to be a missile test, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has spent most of the week deflecting questions with the official line that "all sides" should show restraint and begin dialogue, and that peace and stability are a "shared responsibility."

But in an interview with NBC News he was more forthright about China's growing concern. "We do not want to see chaos and conflict on China's doorstep," he said.

In fact, there are signs that China is rethinking its policy toward the North. President Xi Jinping last weekend told a forum of political and business leaders that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain." He didn't mention the North by name, but it was pretty clear who he was referring to.

Earlier, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would not allow "troublemaking on China's doorstep," a line repeated in an editorial in Thursday's China Daily.

China also supported the latest UN sanctions that followed North Korea's third nuclear test.

In fact, relations between the two have been souring for some time as Pyongyang has consistently ignored calls by Beijing for restraint.

"To many in Beijing, North Korea is looking less like a strategic asset and more like a strategic burden," said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor at Renmin University's School of International Studies.

In the past, even when clearly unhappy, Beijing has treated the North with kid gloves because of fear of the North collapsing, and also as a hedge against U.S. power in Asia.

'Little Fatty'
According to leaked 2010 diplomat cables obtained by Wikileaks and posted by newspapers the Guardian and the New York Times, Chinese officials described the regime in the North as behaving like a "spoiled child."

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

Chinese social media, which is as close a barometer of public opinion as you can get here, has in recent days been buzzing with criticism -- not of the U.S., but of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for leading his country to disaster and the world close to war.

Kim is derided as "Little Fatty" or "Fatty the Third."

One former top U.S. diplomat agrees there are clear signs that China is losing patience with North Korea. Kurt Campbell, the state department's top official for east asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be "as close as lips and teeth" is wearing thin.

He said this was notable in public statements and private conversations with U.S. officials. Speaking last week at a forum at Johns Hopkins University, he said this had the potential for a large impact on northeast Asia.

What's harder to say is how this growing frustration will be translated into concrete actions to pressure the North.

Cheng of Renmin University noted that in 2003 Beijing turned off the oil supply in order to force Pyongyang to join six-party talks and could use that weapon again.

"If China has political will, China can do something," he said. "China can make a difference."

Secretary of State John Kerry will be taking this up with China's leaders when he is there this weekend.

"China and the U.S. share common interests in peace, stability and denuclearisation," said the Foreign Ministry's Hong Lei. "We hope to work with the U.S. side towards that end."

Significantly, there has so far been no Chinese criticism of the display of U.S. high-tech firepower in the region, which is seen as another tacit condemnation of Pyongyang's antics.

That said, Kerry will no doubt point out, as other officials have done privately, that if China fails to act the result will be an even bigger U.S. military presence in the region and a possible regional arms race -- precisely what China has said it wants to avoid.

Related:

US on missile watch as North Korea celebrates

Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

The coffee shop is modeled after the familiar set from the NBC series, right down to the instantly recognizable oversize orange couch. And while customers may not get to see Chandler, Joey or Phoebe, they will get served by “Rachel,” since all the servers go by that name.

"I'm crazy about ‘Friends,’” the shop’s owner, Du Xin, told TODAY. How obsessed is he with the show? Du goes by the nickname Gunther, which was the name of the bleached-blond owner of the fictitious Central Perk who pined for Rachel (played by Jennifer Aniston) on the NBC sitcom.

“Friends” aired from 1994 to 2004, and Du said he has watched all 236 episodes repeatedly. The show runs on a continual loop on his shop’s large-screen television and serves as a learning tool for people interested in mastering colloquial English.

The café’s menu is inspired by items served on the show, including the infamous “stolen cheesecake” from season seven.

“A lot of people know cheesecake from ‘Friends’ in China,” Du said.

Many of the shop’s patrons may be too young to remember when the shows originally aired, but like a good cup of coffee, they savor the strong friendships forged in the series, and view the show’s characters as lifestyle guides.

“We admire their lifestyle very much. We want to be like the characters in the show,” one patron explained to TODAY.

There have even been five marriage proposals in the Beijing Central Perk, inspired by the episode in which Monica famously proposed to Chandler.

The popularity of the café prompted Du to recently open a second Central Perk location in Shanghai.

Hong Kong gets slammed with seven tropical storms a year on average and escapes flooding with a drainage system that looks like a set from a James Bond movie. NBC’s Ian Williams reports.

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.

Throwback: China's ex-president flexes power broker muscle in Beijing

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.

Despite deadly week, Communist Party says Tibetans 'feel very happy'

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.

Embassy ballots give Chinese a taste of democracy ahead of power transfer

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.

BEIJING - While the candidates are scrutinized and skewered by the media in the U.S., China's new leader Xi Jinping remains a man of mystery among his citizens. NBC's Ian Williams was in Beijing this week, walking, cycling and driving through the streets of the capital to find out just what Beijingers know about the man who is slated to become China's next President.

BEIJING - The Great Wall of China is one of the world's most famous landmarks, but much of it is still being explored. NBC's Ian Williams joined noted Great Wall historian, William Lindesay and Steven Schwankert of SinoScuba to take a unique look at one hidden section of the wall, diving down into a vast lake that submerged the wall when an entire valley was flooded decades ago.