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Law enforcement officers tackle fruit seller Li Shengyan in Guangzhou, China, in an incident that turned into a public relations nightmare for the authorities.

Cops in China charged with fighting petty crime have become so notorious for their abuse of power that their official name, Chengguan, has become slang for thuggishness. “Don’t be too chengguan,” one might admonish another, meaning “don’t be such a bully.”

That reputation was given more fuel Wednesday when a newspaper ran pictures of an officer tackling a diminutive fruit vendor in the southern boomtown of Guangzhou as her 16-month-old daughter looked on. During the incident, he grabbed Li Shengyan's neck and wrestled her to the ground after a dispute over a fruit knife.

Once such incidents would have provoked little comment and the authorities did not need to fear the court of public opinion.

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After Li Shengyan was arrested, her 16-month-old daughter gave her a hug.

But the popularity of social media websites has changed all that. Users of China’s two most popular Twitter-like services had commented on the pictures some 7 million times by Friday, many expressing their disgust at the police.

There are now signs that those in power are being forced to take people power seriously, even if the eventual outcome is much the same.

One expert on Chinese social media said that while officials’ first instincts were “to cover up and distract attention” from controversial events, they now faced losing their jobs if they handled them badly.

Wednesday’s incident – as described by the report in the Southern Metropolitan newspaper -- started after officials confiscated her fruit knife. One officer, Ao Dating, then threatend to take away her fruit and the cart.

Pomegranate thrown
Li then yelled at Ao and hurled a pomegranate at him. This enraged Ao and he grabbed her by the neck.  The officer then forced her to the ground. His colleagues eventually dragged him off Li.

One picture showed Li with her hands tied -- unable to comfort her daughter as the young girl hugged her.

After the confrontation, Li was arrested and taken to a police station along with her daughter. Her cart was confiscated.

By Thursday, the story had become an internet sensation. 

“Brute!” one blogger posted.

“Can’t you be a little more civilized? Do you know how much it will traumatize the girl,” another said.

The traditional response given by officials to international press enquiries about events like this is: “I do not know.” 

However, this time, a spokeswoman for Guangzhou’s City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau was surprisingly forthcoming.

“Our bosses are investigating the incident and will inform the public once we find out,” she said. “We are waiting for the results too.”

Jeremy Goldkorn, an expert on Chinese media and Internet culture, said local governments were increasingly held to account by higher authorities for issues raised on the blogosphere.

“If they do not react, these lower level officials like city urban management police could lose their jobs,” he said.

“The first reaction of these types of officials is just to try to cover up and distract attention from the case. Because of the speed and growth of the social media, it becomes more and more difficult for that kind of distraction happen,” he added.

Investigation blames Li
After its investigation, the law enforcement bureau said officers had been suspended and there was a report Li had been given an apology as she was released from custody.

However, the investigation blamed it on Li, accusing her of attacking officials, injuring one. A picture of Li throwing the pomegranate was also released.

The original report in the Southern Metropolitan was taken down and other websites commenting on the incident also disappeared.

Li's cart was returned, but she was left unhappy.

“They (the officials) said ‘The girl, and her parents were well taken care of by the police,” she posted on a Tencent Weibo account which was registered to her. “It was just a show. My girl’s diaper was not changed in 24 hours … the police should face what they have done instead of writing a nice article to make themselves look good."

Huang Pei, of NBC News, contributed to this report.

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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.