By Ed Flanagan and Adrienne Mong, NBC News

AP

Chinese police officers patrol Beijing's Xidan shopping district on March 6, 2011. Xidan was one of two sites in the capital designated as a protest zone by anonymous internet users.

BEIJING – Midway through a press conference ostensibly called to address the continued hostility towards foreign journalists attempting to cover China’s nascent – if at all existing – Jasmine Revolution, Li Xiaoming of Beijing’s Traffic Management Bureau asked the question he thought everybody in the room was dying to ask:

“I’m sure all of you might have this question in mind,” said Li matter-of-factly. “How can we make sure that the vehicles to be used by deputies and representatives [from this week’s National People’s Congress] are safe and smoothly running?”

Indeed.

Few reports of the press conference that was held at the Information Office of Beijing Municipality Sunday afternoon will probably note this, but the entire opening statement had nothing to do with China’s crackdown on dissidents and press freedoms for foreign journalists and everything to do with the great lengths the traffic bureau had gone to ease traffic conditions and foster a “harmonious driving culture” in the capital.

Journalists present were forced to sit through a long list of traffic accomplishments and new municipal initiatives before they were allowed to ask the questions everybody really wanted answers to. Namely, what was wrong with reporting the Jasmine Revolution? What are the new restrictions that Beijing has placed on reporting in the capital? And would Chinese security agents continue to obstruct reporting by foreign journalists?

With regard to the former, Beijing city government spokeswoman, Wang Hui, confidently squashed the question, declaring that attempts to call for protests like the ones seen in the Middle East and Africa were “doomed to fail.”

"Cool-headed people know that these people have chosen the wrong place, and their ideas and plans are wrong," said Wang, "In Beijing, we have had and will have no such incidents."

Wang continued, noting, "Over the past 30 years or more, China's success and economic progress have been broadly recognized. The Communist Party's leadership and government's policies are in line with the people's will and their hearts."

The only hint that the local journalists assembled may have had a differing opinion of Wang’s statement came from the first question of the press conference by a Xinhua reporter referencing reports that came out late last week that Beijing was considering using people’s mobile phone signals to track their movements.

The announcement stirred deep privacy concerns in China. And while Wang suggested that Beijing was merely studying a proposal to utilize such technology, the fact that Li of the Traffic Bureau had earlier boasted of such technology was perhaps a not-so-tacit reminder to those would-be protestors that the technology was indeed at the government’s disposal to monitor not just political dissidents, but foreign reporters as well.

Wang was also quick to rebuff requests for clarification of the rules governing journalists operating in busy areas around town. He expressed frustration at repeated questions about the new restrictions put in place.

“I myself believe this [the requirements for interviewing in Beijing] is quite easy to understand,” said Wang, ”So we find this very perplexing why some foreign correspondents find this difficult to understand.”

Wang seemingly answered her own question when she later suggested that some foreign journalists in China were intent on creating the news instead of reporting it.

In response to a statement by one foreign reporter that their role in China was merely to report events as they happen, Wang said, “Just now you said foreign correspondents are not here to generate news, I cannot disagree more.”

Such an assertion had no basis in truth in western Beijing’s Xidan shopping district Monday, though, where calls for further protests there were belied by throngs of shoppers taking in the balmier weather. It was impossible to tell who was browsing and who was strolling in support of the so-called Jasmine rallies.

But it was easy to spot the security forces.  The number of uniform police didn’t seem as large as those we saw last Sunday in Wangfujing, but there were many, many more plainclothes officers. Typically sporting sneakers and leather jackets with earpieces, they stood mostly on their own — not in groups as they were last week.  Several were carrying video cameras, which again last week were used to film foreign journalists on the scene.

Western journalists who wandered through the neighborhood were stopped immediately and checked for IDs.  Most were told politely to leave the area.

Combative as Wang’s statements and Beijing’s actions in Xidan today were, they were perhaps the clearest reflection of Beijing’s current perception of foreign reporters here in China so far. Whether time will heal this presently strained relationship remains to be seen, but in the meantime it is safe to say that the level of mistrust being exhibited by China’s governing party towards the foreign press corps has not been seen in quite some time.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

A Dai farmer in Yunnan.

BEIJING — We were on the road this past week so had been following from afar all the reports of the continued Chinese government crackdown.

Ever since an anonymous call for the Jasmine rallies surfaced on the Internet in the days leading up to Sunday, February 20th, the authorities have tightened up their monitoring of microblogs and other online discussions as well as rounded up dissidents, activists, and lawyers.

Based on the news coming out of Beijing and Shanghai — where the crackdown has been intently felt by foreign journalists — China appeared to be turning the clock back to a much more repressive time when paranoia seemed to reign.

But in the hinterlands of Inner Mongolia in the far north or Yunnan towards the southwestern border with Myanmar, where we had been travelling this week, it was a different China.   One that seemed to be still opening up to the outside world and busy with modernizing.

It was the country that gave credence to arguments that China is not like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, or any of the other nations in the grip of anti-government turmoil.

A place, for instance, where farmers, enabled by local government to grow cash crops, have seen their living standards improve immeasurably in the past ten years.  Where an agronomist who grew up in Burundi and came to China six years ago marvelled at the paved roads that allowed him to make regular visits to farmers—something that along with the cell phone coverage, clean running water supply, electricity, and Internet access was simply unimaginable where he was last working, in Tanzania.

A place where farmers were more interested in using their cell phones and the Internet to keep track of international commodity prices like rubber than to participate in dissent.

A place where the word “jasmine” means nothing but tea to the local villagers.

As ever, it was sobering and inspiring to see people whose idea of a better life meant being able to earn enough money to buy a refrigerator or a motorbike or, in one instance, a new 4x4.

But then back in Beijing, within an hour of walking back through my front door from the airport, two local police officers stopped by unannounced at 10:20 p.m. 

As they have been doing all week, they were checking up on everyone’s paperwork, and they took the time to remind me—as a foreign journalist — to follow Chinese law and regulations.  A place that is reverting to type as a police state.

And this was still the China that also failed to look after its own people. One report this morning recounted a typical encounter between petitioners coming to the capital to lobby for their interests and the security forces engaging in ham-fisted bullying.

A place where, according to state-run media, 739,000 security personnel have been deployed across Beijing — many of whom were on alert at the city's two main sites designated by the anonymous people or group urging for the Jasmine rallies.

By Adrienne Mong and Eric Baculinao

BEIJING--Elsewhere in the country, the would-be Jasmine rallies seemed to have met the same fate as in Beijing. 

Our colleagues in Harbin said no one turned up at the appointed locations — although that may well have been due to the frigid conditions as the city lies in China’s far northeast.

There was a massive turnout in Shanghai, where at least seven men were detained.  It was not clear whether they were protesters or journalists, but people professing to be participants in the rally were quoted by several news outlets.

Meantime, the crackdown continued on dissidents.

Housing rights activist Ni Yulan said she could not follow the news as authorities have kept her Internet connection cut off since she was released from detention last year.  She revealed that U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr., visited her early last month to express concern over her situation.

“I heard about this “jasmine” thing from others, but I don’t think it is possible in China,” she told NBC News. 

“I don’t really pay much attention to this “jasmine” thing,” said Xu Zhiyong, a human rights lawyer.  “But still the authorities are restricting my movements.”

Others dismissed the “Jasmine rallies” as a joke.

“It was not a call for real revolution," said a veteran from the 1989 Tiananmen protests who did wish to be identified. "It was just to make fun."

Dissident writer and physicist Dr. Jiang Qisheng concurred, saying the whole affair “was really meant to make fun of authorities.”  Jiang spent 17 months in prison after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and signed the controversial Charter '08, an online petition calling for an end to one-party rule and greater civil and human rights. 

“I was not planning to join this protest, but, just the same, authorities are checking on me almost every day to control my activities,” he told NBC News.

But for the Chinese authorities this is no joke.

In addition to the gravity of the matter demonstrated in the overwhelming police presence in central Beijing today, Premier Wen Jiabao held an online question and answer session with Chinese netizens early this morning.

 It was his third ever such webchat and suggested the Chinese leadership had decided on a two-pronged approach to squelch the would-be protests: a sophisticated propaganda effort as well as a heavy-handed security clampdown.

Wen’s remarks — which focused on the nation’s economic growth alongside social justice and environmental protection and pledged the government would control soaring inflation and real estate prices — were broadcast repeatedly on state radio, television, and the Internet all day.

Some of those issues touched on by Wen are highly sensitive topics that weigh on many ordinary Chinese, especially rising food prices over the past year and sky-high property prices that are out of the reach of most urban residents.

It should be noted this is a sensitive time for the Chinese central government.  Next week sees the start of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).  Both are nominally elected government bodies that rubberstamp legislative and policy proposals.  With such a high-profile gathering of government officials, the capital is typically put on high security alert.

BEIJING -- Let us be clear from the start: this is not a blog post about a would-be revolution.

It’s about the demonstration of state power in a police state.

Today was the second Sunday in a row of an unspecified number of mass gatherings anonymously called across the country to protest against the Chinese government and some of its policies.

At 2 p.m. local time, ordinary people were urged “to take an afternoon stroll” to show solidarity. “As long as you are present, the authoritarian government will be shaking with fear,” says the call for “Jasmine Rallies” circulating online.

In Beijing, the location was a McDonald's in the busy shopping district of Wangfujing. But just hours before the scheduled hour, rumours surfaced that the designation had been changed to a KFC a few storefronts north of the McDonald's.

This may have been due to the overnight appearance on Friday of a construction site that surrounded the original site. Wooden walls barricading some mysterious edifice took up half of the street, severely limiting traffic.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Water cannon truck parks itself outside the KFC before the rally was due to begin at 2 p.m. local.

Today, we turned up in Wangfujing early and were immediately confronted with a massive police turnout.  Uniformed and plainclothes officers populated the main thoroughfare every few feet.  Inside the shops and malls were small groups of local community police volunteers with red armbands.

Rows of police vehicles — vans and sedans — were parked on side streets running off the main strip.  At least a handful of large buses — both the tourist kind and the type used by city transport — sat next to the vehicles or on Wangfujing.  We guessed they would serve as paddy wagons should things get out of hand.

It turns out the only thing that got out of hand was the security. 

This was the heaviest police presence we'd seen in the capital since the 2008 Summer Olympics, and even this seemed to rival the overtly public scale of what was on display three years ago. 

A shadowy detail
The designated KFC was on the first floor above ground, and there were large windows overlooking Wangfujing. We entered to eat lunch.

Tables alongside the window were occupied by plainclothes police, some carrying tourist camera bags, but all of them wearing some sort of earpiece — the telltale curly white wire running down their necks.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Plainclothes security sit inside the KFC overlooking Wangfujing. Spot the earpiece on the man to the left.

One table began filming us as we stood nearby, eating at a counter.

The same group filming us followed us out of the restaurant and onto the street. They even entered the same café we dropped into to buy some coffee. One man, in a bright red anorak, stood out; his constant companion was a small digital video camera.

By now, fellow journalists we recognized were appearing and being checked for IDs. The police were taking no chances. They even stopped a western couple with two small children.

Pairs of uniformed police with large German shepherds on muzzles patrolled the street.

Three water trucks pulled up outside of the KFC entrance.

In the meantime, the 3G signal on my Blackberry was acting up. I could no longer receive/send emails or tweet (using hashtag #CN227 for today's date). China Mobile, a major state-owned telecoms company, kept our handsets firmly on GMS, which permitted only phone calls and text messages. China Unicom, another state-owned telecoms company, only had SOS service.

Flooding the zone

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

More plainclothes police with earpieces sit inside a cafe.

Two o’clock came and went. 

The water trucks were joined by one more.  They began driving up and down the length of south Wangfujing, spraying the road and, more significantly, clearing it of pedestrians.

No one was allowed to loiter for long.  Police regularly pushed people along, sometimes politely, sometimes roughly, but always saying the same thing, “Move along, move along, don’t stop here, you’re interfering with traffic flow.”

As two o’clock got further away, however, the authorities became more aggressive.

A police tape went up on the street south of McDonald’s.  The authorities checked Chinese people for IDs now, too; they appeared to be singling out young men with backpacks—anyone who looked like a student, perhaps a likely participant in the Jasmine rally?

Journalists were prevented from filming. Anyone with a camera was suspect. Professional cameras were confiscated or their owners barred from entering. A handful of journalists were roughed up.

We saw a scrum and tried to see what was happening. Stephen Engle, an American reporter with Bloomberg TV, was being shoved and pushed by the police. When he fell to the ground and shouted for help, we tried to approach. We were immediately bundled away — dozens of police turned us around and pushed us down the street. Large men, in down jackets and tracksuit pants, individually began bumping into people, like pinballs, keeping them away. (Engle was reported to be still in police custody at the time of this posting but planning to go to the hospital tonight.) 

Bystanders confused
Even the street cleaners, in their neon-colored vests, got in on the act. One of them used his broom to sweep at the feet of my colleague, cameraman David Lom, to keep him off-balance when he tried to film and to drive him away.

Ordinary Chinese were bewildered. “What’s going on? Why can’t we walk here?” they asked.

By Adrienne Mong/NBC News

Passersby take photos of the police dogs, normally an unusual sight in an ordinary shopping district like Wangfujing.

Some were more belligerent. One woman started shouting, “Why can’t I go down here? Why are you stopping me? Stop pushing.”

Others tried to work out the reasons for security by identifying the authorities. “These are ordinary police [Public Security police], not wujing (People’s Armed Police),” said one man. 

But he was wrong. The wujing were there, too.

What looked like a handful of squads of PAP troops marched in formation past the water trucks outside the KFC and McDonald’s.

Around three o’clock, the authorities had stopped traffic altogether on the southern end of Wangfujing, right where it abuts with Chang’An Road — where the People’s Liberation Army drove its tanks down toward Tiananmen Square in 1989 to crush the student protests.

Crowds were building at this end, behind police tape and police.

And then suddenly they were free to go.

What is remarkable is, at the end of the day, no recognizable protest took place in Wangfujing.

Click here for details on the security crackdown elsewhere in China.