• China grows weary of North Korea's 'chaos and conflict'

    As Kerry heads to Seoul, South Korea, tensions with North Korea continue to rise as it remains unclear whether or not the latest rhetoric is merely Kim Jong-un showing off his military strength. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    By Ian Williams, correspondent, NBC News

    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.

    Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel described North Korea's actions and "bellicose rhetoric" as "skating very close to a dangerous line."  NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    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.

    Secret filming captures N. Korean smugglers sneaking into China to get supplies for their impoverished country, as a refugee tells of the horror of life under Kim Jong Un. ITN's Angus Walker reports.

    "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

  • Chinese protest outside newspaper gates in rare censorship demo

    Kyodo News via AP

    A protester holds aloft a banner calling for freedom of speech near the headquarters of Southern Weekly newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Monday.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    GUANGZHOU, China — Scores of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated outside its headquarters on Monday in a rare protest against censorship, backing an unusual strike by journalists against interference by the provincial propaganda chief. 

    The protest in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province, came amid an escalating standoff between the government and the people over press freedom. It is also an early test of Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping's commitment to reform. 

    Negotiations between journalists and officials, whom the protesters held responsible for replacing a New Year's letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party's achievements, continued into the night, a senior journalist who asked not to be named told NBC News.

     

    Police allowed the demonstration outside the headquarters of the Southern Group, illustrating that the Guangdong government, led by new appointee and rising political star Hu Chunhua, wants to tread carefully to contain rising public anger over censorship. 


    The protesters, most of them young, laid down small handwritten signs that said "freedom of expression is not a crime" and "Chinese people want freedom."

    China Nobel winner Mo Yan likens censorship to airport security

    Many clutched yellow chrysanthemums, symbolizing mourning the death of press freedom. 

    "The Nanfang (Southern) Media Group is relatively willing to speak the truth in China, so we need to stand up for its courage and support it now," Ao Jiayang, a young NGO worker with bright orange dyed hair, told Reuters. 

    AP

    Security guards stand near protest banners as flowers are laid outside the headquarters of Southern Weekly newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong on Monday.

    "We hope that through this we can fight for media freedom in China," Ao said. "Today's turnout reflects that more and more people in China have a civic consciousness."

    The U.S. State Department on Monday weighed in on the popular agitation for freer speech in China.

    "We believe that censorship of the media is incompatible with China’s aspirations to build a modern information-based economy and society," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, speaking to reporters at the daily department briefing. "It is, of course, interesting that we now have Chinese who are strongly taking up their right for free speech, and we hope the government’s taking notice."

    Could expand
    Chen Ziming, a Beijing-based political analyst who spent years in prison for his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, said the protests could get worse if authorities ignore the protesters demands.

    "I am concerned … that the leaders concerned may not have the boldness and the capability to push for more reform," he told NBC News. "If the problem is not handled properly, there is the danger that it will expand and worsen."

    The non-profit watchdog group Reporters without Borders ranked China at 174th out of 179 spots in its 2011-2012 press freedom index. The United States ranked 47th in the annual report, six rungs above Hong Kong, a former British colony which is administered separately from China's mainland.

    "China, which has more journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents in prison than any other country, stepped up its censorship and propaganda in 2011 and tightened its control of the Internet, particularly the blogosphere," the group said in a report about the rankings.

    The attention paid to the protest domestically highlights the unique position of Guangdong, China's wealthiest and most liberal province and the birthplace of the country's "reform and opening up" program. In a symbolic move, Xi chose to go to Guangdong on his first trip after being anointed party chief in November.

    Mo Yan's Nobel win celebrated —and panned — in China

    "That this is happening in Guangdong, a trendsetter of China’s reform, is cause for worry," Bao Tong, the highest ranking party official sent to prison for sympathizing with the 1989 pro-democracy movement, told NBC News.

    "If Guangdong regresses, then it will be a setback for the reform pioneered by Xi Zhongxun," he said, referring to the father of new Party chief Xi Jinping who was once Guangdong’s governor.

    Revelations of vast fortune held by Chinese leader's family may hurt Communist Party image

    Talking to NBC News by telephone from his Beijing home where he remains under virtual house arrest, Bao said China’s new leaders recently called for protecting the constitution and rule of law.

    "What the journalists did was to support the call of the new leaders, and the leaders should be happy, not unhappy," he said.

    Several open letters have circulated on the Internet calling for the Guangdong propaganda chief, Tuo Zhen, to step down, blaming him for muzzling the press. 

     

     

     

     Photographs on microblogs showed banners that said "if the toxin of Tuo isn't removed ... Guangdong will be castrated." 

    "Not since the time of reform and opening up and the founding of China has there been someone like Tuo Zhen," Yan Lieshan, a retired veteran editor at the Southern Weekly newspaper, told Reuters by telephone. "He's too arrogant. He has gone overboard and constantly violates regulations." 

    Xiao Shu, a former prominent commentator at the Southern Weekly, said Tuo required that journalists submit topics for him to approve and that he yanked issues that he disliked. 

    Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei goes 'Gangnam Style'

    "These details illustrate one problem: that he has established within the Guangdong media a system of prior censorship of the press," Xiao said, calling for Tuo's removal. 

    Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked. 

    China shut the website of a leading pro-reform magazine on Friday, apparently because it ran an article calling for political reform and constitutional government, sensitive topics for the party which brooks no dissent.

    NBC News' Eric Baculinao, Le Li, Kari Huus and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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  • China's communists pick country's new leader

    China's ruling Communist Party has selected Xi Jinping as the country's new leader. Xi faces a faltering economy, environmental issues, demands for political reforms, as well as rampant corruption and public cynicism. NBC's Ian Williams reports.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – China’s ruling Communist Party on Thursday selected a new seven-person leadership group fronted by Xi Jinping that will lead the world’s second largest economy for at least the next five years.


    Xi, the newly selected party secretary, and his deputy, Li Keqiang -- the new members of the all-important Politburo Standing Committee -- take over a nation whose economy has quadrupled under the leadership of outgoing leader, Hu Jintao, but now faces serious environmental, political and social questions in the near future.

    For Xi though, this Standing Committee appears better poised to bring about much-needed reforms than that of his predecessor, Hu.

    China’s Communist Party of today governs by consensus. Long gone are the days of “Strong Man” politics where one man – a Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping – dictates policy for the country.

    This political evolution helped produce the stability that has ushered in unprecedented economic growth.

    Remarkably this week saw only the second peaceful leadership transition since the communists took power in 1949.

    David Gray / Reuters

    A customer stands with restaurant workers underneath a painting of Chinese characters that read "Long-lasting Prosperity", as they watch television showing the new leadership of China's ruling Communist Party.

    The new leadership committee announced Thursday represents a rare balance of differing political agendas and alliances.

    Men like Li Keqiang – probably the party’s best educated leader – and Wang Qishan – a strong voice for the opening up of China’s economy – are likely to be liberal voices for reform.

    Communist Party's Congress grinds on amid widespread indifference in China

    Where is China's Vice President? That's the question that can't be answered in Beijing. Even searching for the name of China's Vice President on Chinese social media has been blocked amid increasing rumors about his whereabouts. Xi Jinping has been missing from the public eye for more than week. ITV's Angus Walker reports.  

    Meanwhile Zhang Dejiang – the faithful party stalwart who took over for the deposed Bo Xilai – and Liu Yunshan – the long-time czar of the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department – represent strong conservative voices.

    The other two members, Zhang Gaoli and Yu Zhengsheng, both come from postings in Tianjin and Shanghai respectively and have shown signs of being centrists on issues.

    Ironically, it is the new Party Secretary and soon-to-be President, Xi Jinping, who is the greatest mystery – a veritable political cipher.

    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 reports

    Yawns and other expressions of boredom as China's Communist Party Congress begins

    But that now seems to be the path to the top position in China: The less known about you politically, the greater the chance of promotion.

    There have been some questions raised about the various appointments that came out Thursday.

    Outgoing President Hu Jintao’s decision to give up his seat on the important Central Military Commission was either a magnanimous demonstration of statesmanship on the part of Hu -- who had to wait two years until his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, gave up the post -- or a resounding defeat as Hu's important political allies did not appear to have made the final seven of the standing committee.

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

    Another intriguing development was the appointment of Wang Qishan to the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

    Wang has garnered a reputation as an effective “fireman” on sensitive issues affecting the party and in recent years has served as a capable counterpart to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

    But, at a time when serious economic concerns regarding the stalling of market reforms and the rise again of centrally planned, state-owned enterprises in China have plagued Beijing, it is a curious move to shift Wang, the strongest voice for economic reform in the party.

    His shift to the top disciplinary position in the party means Wang will be able to bring about positive economic development by attacking a larger issue plaguing both party and country: corruption.

    As China’s economy continues to develop in size and sophistication, the need for better standards of practice economically and politically have slowly started to manifest itself.

    There is some optimism now that with a reformer like Wang in place, there will eventually be the political will at the highest levels to bring about a serious reckoning on systemic corruption at both national and local levels across the country. 

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  • Communist Party's Congress grinds on amid widespread indifference in China

    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.

    By Ian Williams, NBC News

    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.

    24 hours after President Barack Obama was re-elected to the White House, the world's other major power, China, began the very different process of choosing its new leader. It happens once every ten years, and lasts just a week. And in case there was any doubt, the ruling Communist Party began by pledging never to have Western democracy. NBC's Angus Walker reports.

    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.

    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 reports

    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.

    CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports on China's selection of new leaders to meet public calls for better government and give the economy a boost.

    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.

     

  • US and China: A tale of two leadership styles

    Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    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.

  • Panetta meets with China's Xi, eats lunch with cadets

    Larry Downing / Pool via Reuters

    U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta carries his lunch with cadets in the mess hall at the PLA Engineering Academy of Armored Forces in Beijing, Sept. 19.

    Larry Downing / Pool via Reuters

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has lunch with cadets in the mess hall at the PLA Engineering Academy of Armored Forces on Sept. 19 in Beijing, China.

    Larry Downing / Pool via Reuters

    U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, sits with China's Vice President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sept. 19.

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    Panetta met with Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi today, who just days ago reappeared after a puzzling two-week absence. Panetta told the press his “impression was that he was very healthy and very engaged." He also ate lunch with and spoke to cadets at the Armored Forces Engineering Academy where he reassured them about America's plans to put a second radar system in Japan. "Our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region is not an attempt to contain China," he said. "It is an attempt to engage China and expand its role in the Pacific. It is about creating a new model in the relationship of two Pacific powers."

    Panetta is on the second stop of a three nation tour to Japan, China and New Zealand.

    Full story

  • Mystery absence of China's heir-apparent, Xi Jinping, sparks rumors

    Where is China's Vice President? That's the question that can't be answered in Beijing. Even searching for the name of China's Vice President on Chinese social media has been blocked amid increasing rumors about his whereabouts. Xi Jinping has been missing from the public eye for more than week. ITV's Angus Walker reports.  

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING -- Weeks before a once-in-a-decade political transition in China, the presumed future leader of China has fallen off the radar -- sparking wild rumors on micro-blogging sites about his health and whereabouts.

    Xi Jinping, the man many assume will become the future president of China and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, has not been seen in public now for more than a week. The 59-year-old was last seen on Sept. 1 while giving a speech at the Central Party School in Beijing.

    Since then, Xi has cancelled a series of meetings with senior foreign leaders including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    After Xi’s meeting with Clinton was cancelled late on the night of Sept. 4, rumors began to swirl around the U.S. press corps travelling with the Secretary that Xi had injured his back.

    The Chinese government has since declined to give any updates on Xi’s health and present whereabouts. At yesterday’s regularly scheduled Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference, ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, was asked a series of questions about Xi to which he simply responded, "We have told everyone everything."

    China Daily via Reuters

    Xi Jinping (right) pictured in Beijing with South Korea's ambassador to China, Lee Kyu-hyung on August 31 - the day before his most recent public appearance.

    According to a Reuters reporter who went to the regular Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was asked if he could confirm that Xi was alive. His response: "I hope you can ask a serious question."

    China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping returns to Iowa

    The reticence of Chinese government officials and state media to comment has merely served as grist to the rumor mill, which has had ample material following an unusually eventful year of political intrigue on the mainland.

    The very high profile fall of former Chongqing Party boss, Bo Xilai, ripped aside the political curtains and gave the Chinese public a peek at the country’s usually opaque process of governance. Besides systemic corruption and serious political abuses, Bo's downfall also exposed divisive political rivalries at the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party at a time when it was in the thick of choosing its future leadership.

    The Three Gorges Hotel and a passenger terminal come crashing down in China to make room for a transportation hub and business center. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    Now, with a new generation of Chinese leaders led by Xi poised to take over when the Communist Party’s 18th Congress meets later this year -- rumored sometime in mid-October -- Chinese regulators are especially cautious about news on their leaders-in-waiting.

    News of Xi Jinping has been absent in recent days in Chinese state media and discussion on his whereabouts and condition have been silenced on microblogs like Weibo after Xi's name was blocked by censors. Some articles printed in online sections of foreign news websites were also apparently blocked.

    In this news vacuum, rumors have begun to swirl around online about the fate of Xi. Most of the speculation focuses on the belief that Xi has some sort of back problem, with the reason for it ranging from a morning swimming session at Beijing leadership’s center, Zhongnanhai, to an ill-fated soccer game there too.    

    With wife's conviction, what is next for China's Bo Xilai?

    The rumors have also been more nefarious in nature. Boxun.com, a U.S.-based website dealing in Chinese news and political gossip, posted a wild, unconfirmed story that Xi had been injured in a car accident in which his vehicle had been struck by another car driven by military officers loyal to the disgraced Bo Xilai.

    Boxun later retracted the story, but it has it not stopped similar unsubstantiated rumors from spreading online, forcing government censors to ceaselessly monitor China’s websphere for content that they characterize as harmful to national stability.

    The wife of a disgraced Chinese politician has been given a suspended death sentence for her role in the death of British businessman, Neil Heywood.  ITV's Angus Walker reports.

    It is not unusual that Chinese leaders would not show up in public for a few days or a week at a time and, of course, Xi could simply appear in public and quickly quash speculation about his health. After all, late last year former Chinese President Jiang Zemin made a rare appearance in public after Hong Kong media speculated that he had died.

    More China coverage from NBCNews.com's Behind The Wall

    However, Jiang, while still extremely influential in the Party leadership, is not a part of the formal government. As the long-established heir-apparent to Hu Jintao for the Chinese Presidency, Xi is the future.

    Whatever the true nature of Xi’s public absence, China’s leadership faces an enormous challenge in reconciling its proclivity for opaqueness with the demands of an increasingly plugged-in society at home and a global audience abroad.

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  • China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping returns to Iowa

    Kevin E. Schmidt / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

    Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping talks with local people in the home of Roger and Sarah Lande in Muscatine, Iowa.

    By NBC's Jo Ling Kent

    MUSCATINE, Iowa – A young, blue-eyed Sarah Lande never thought the polite young man from China, Xi Jinping, sitting at her dining room table in 1985 would go on to become the next president of China. She simply thought of him as a gentle soul with genuine interest in her family’s Iowa roots, sharing a home-cooked meal of pork, beef and locally grown corn.

    Wednesday afternoon 27 years later – he returned to the same three-story home on Muscatine’s 2nd Street and walked through the same door, but this time as China’s next president.

    “Coming here is really like coming back to home,” Xi told a packed living room of familiar faces he met on his 1985 visit. “You can’t even imagine what a deep impression I had from my visit 27 years ago … because you were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with.”

    “Everything was very new and fresh,” he added.

    Xi’s visit is a rare glimpse at an ascending leader in China’s typically opaque and rigid Communist Party. No high-ranking official has had such direct and personal ties to the United States.

    'Old friends'
    Xi first visited Muscatine as a provincial official from Iowa’s sister state of Hebei almost three decades ago. Leading a delegation of four other local officials on an educational trip primarily focused on agriculture, Xi and his colleagues toured local farms and businesses as part of an exchange that began with Iowans going to Hebei in 1984. He met then- and current Iowa governor Terry Branstad and more than a dozen other Iowans in Muscatine he now calls his “old friends.”

    The cover of the Muscatine Journal showing the young Xi Jinping on his visit to Iowa in 1985. The headline on the story says, "Chinese visitors receive warm welcome" and there is photo of the town mayor handing Xi the keys to the city.

    Lande, who was one of the organizers of his trip, was constrained by a limited budget so she resorted to old-fashioned hospitality of home-stays and meals at home. Xi spent two nights with the Dvorchaks a few blocks away from the Landes. There, Xi slept in their son’s bedroom, decorated with Star Trek figurines and wall paper.

    “I wish I had updated the room,” Eleanor Dvorchak, 72, recalled. “But he was so congenial, anything would have been fine.”

    One thing was for certain, no one ever expected the quiet Xi to become China’s next leader.

    “Sometimes we are just in awe, that he is going to be the next leader,” Lande told NBC News in an interview ahead of the reunion.

    “Nobody knew,” Dvorchak added afterward. “At the time, I was impressed what a hard worker he was.”

    Clearly, Muscatine also left an indelible impression on Xi. Upon invitation back to Iowa by Governor Branstad, he requested to reunite with each person he met in Muscatine.

    Small-town charm
    Muscatine is the perfect, if coincidental, background to counterbalance Xi’s highly-scripted meetings in Washington. Aesthetically frozen in the 1950s, the town oozes both old-fashioned small-town charm and the harsh reality of post-industrial American economy. Many storefronts and warehouses stand empty in a place that once called itself the "pearl button capital of the world." Meanwhile, China has opened and expanded exponentially since 1985, into a roaring economy.

    Kevin E. Schmidt / The Quad City Times via AP

    Six-year-old Lucy Lande waits for the arrival of Xi Jinping at the home of her grandparents, Roger and Sarah Lande.

    But it was friendship, not jobs, that was the complete focus of today’s reunion. Fond memories about American movies and a tour of the Mississippi river took up most of the conversation.

    When Lande recalled Xi seeing puppies play in a Muscatine backyard in 1985, Xi replied, “We love puppies. We have two puppies as pets now.”

    However, Xi has not always been entirely friendly to foreigners. According to a diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks last year, the soon-to-be-president lashed out against countries who have criticized China's human rights and trade record.

    "There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs," Xi said at a lunch meeting in Mexico in February of 2009.

    Ultimately, Muscatine citizens and leaders alike had high hopes of leaving another positive memory with Xi that would, yet again, last far beyond his time in Iowa.

    “I hope we can really express the warmth and you know we’re proud of him and we look forward to really enhanced relations between China and America,” Lande told NBC News. “Let it start in the heartland.”

    “So many Iowans are pleased that a man we befriended those many years ago, has risen to such a position of prominence and respect in the great nation of China,” Gov.  Branstad said in a toast to Xi tonight at an official dinner in Des Moines.

    Others hope Vice President Xi’s two visits here will help push US-China relations in a more positive direction, as diplomatic tensions have escalated over trade and currency valuation.

    Hope for improved relations
    During the tea at her home, Lande told Xi that she hopes the US and China will “have a surge in the amount of visas that they issue, so we can have more international exchange and more trade, as we’re having here between Iowa and China.”

    Others in Muscatine are hoping to contribute to leaving a warmer legacy between the two countries.

    “If you meet people and treat them the way you would want them to treat you, then good things can come from that,” said Steinbach of the Muscatine Journal.

    “I hope that's the case for Muscatine and that Mr. Xi would take that back to China with him and remember that in any dealings he has in the years to come with the United States,” Steinbach added. “There are people here who are honest and hardworking that you'd I'm sure find in parts in China and anywhere else.”

    Xi’s stop through the Midwest also put Muscatine on the map like never before. The anticipation of Xi’s visit took the town by storm. The local paper welcomed Xi on its front page and reproduced the articles and photos that appeared in a 1985 edition, hailing his visit as a young official.

    At the local high school, a classroom of students dutifully practiced their "ni hao’s” and "xiexie's" ahead of Xi’s arrival.

    Jenny Juehring has been learning Mandarin for three years and today was selected to stand on the front porch of Lande’s to greet Xi and show off her language skills.

    “I think he's very cool, that'd he come back here, to a place that's so small and pretty insignificant, for such a small town,” Juehring told NBC News.

    Ho Xuefeng, a waiter at a Thai restaurant downtown, took the day off of work to watch Xi’s motorcade whiz by.

    “I’m originally from Shenyang,” Ho told NBC News. “To see someone like him come to this little town is rare.”

    The town’s McDonald’s posted a message on their marquee for their Chinese visitor: “Welcome back, Vice President Xi Jinping,” perhaps lending a new local meaning to “billions and billions served.”

    Inside, line cooks and high school-aged cashiers peered out the drive-through windows hoping to catch a glimpse of Xi’s motorcade whizzing by.

    Some protests
    But the trip wasn’t without minor hiccups. Free Tibet supporters lined the block leading to the home where Xi was hosted for tea and waved Tibetan flags, often chanting opposite equally animated college students from mainland China responding with “We love China!” across the street.

    Just minutes before Xi’s arrival at the Lande home, security officials rerouted the vice president’s motorcade to arrive on the other side of the house, where the Tibetan flags were far from sight.

    Agile protestors questioning the Chinese government’s human rights record slipped past police barricades, waving signs that read “Stop Prosecuting the Falun Gong” in English and Mandarin. They were quickly ushered away by Iowa State Troopers and a Chinese government representative.

    But overall, the visit was exactly how many in Muscatine hoped it would be: friendly, smooth and memorable.

    As Xi departed the Lande home in the evening rain, he peered through the window of his bullet-proof limousine, waving and waving to his “old friends” until his motorcade turned the corner.

    Clad in a red silk jacket emblazoned with Chinese characters, Lande waved after the polite young man who came over for that pork and corn dinner 27 years ago.

    “Wow, I just can’t believe it!” she said.

  • To Chinese state media, Xi's US visit a success

    Associated Press

    U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping at the White House on Feb. 14, 2012.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Days into Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, the Chinese press assessment was startlingly similar to American coverage: long on diplomatic niceties, short on any serious policy.

    In other words, a great success for the apparent heir to the Chinese presidency.

    On last night’s CCTV’s Evening News, which an estimated 135 million Chinese watch each night, Xi was showed being dutifully feted by Washington’s political elite with all the pomp expected for America’s most important trading partner. Full military honor guards, lunch with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, of course, a sit-down with President Barack Obama were all highlights in the official coverage.

    Similarly, Thursday’s People’s Daily and the English-language China Daily led with Xi’s meetings in Washington and his Valentine’s Day-appropriate message that the two countries don’t need to love each other, but nevertheless still need to learn to trust each other and work better together.

    Writing about Xi’s comments at a welcome lunch hosted by Biden and Clinton, the People’s Daily earnestly noted the key to working out differences over issues like trade, foreign policy and human rights is that they be “handled based on principles of mutual respect, candid communication and mutual non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs.”

    Associated Press

    Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping reviews troops outside the Pentagon during a full honors ceremony in his honor on Tuesday.

    The Beijing News also noted that Xi had expressed to Biden that, “China hopes the U.S. will see China with an objective view and take real action to enhance mutual trust.”

    Both comments are excellent examples of the rhetoric typical of Chinese state media coverage of these high-level visits. In some ways, they represent a status quo: an olive branch that is extended in advance of and during high-level visits to reflect the ruling Communist Party’s desire to focus on areas of agreement rather than disagreement.

    That these talking points continue to show up daily in local coverage here of Xi’s visit suggest that he has managed to accomplish his primary goals: reaffirming the importance of the Sino-U.S. relationship to the Chinese without rocking the boat.

    To be sure, there are issues of disagreement more plainly articulated in the press here but currently only on the periphery of the generally positive coverage of Xi’s visit.

    For example, the reliably nationalist newspaper, Global Times, in one article emphasized the positive steps that have come from Xi’s trip. But in a separate story on the Syria question – an issue that China has taken a hard stance on – noted that, “the West’s interference has been an important external factor that affects the developing direction of Arab political crises.”

    The article concluded by charging, “Foreign interference has played an important role for the Syrian situation evolving into a civil war.”

    In yesterday’s People’s Daily, an article entitled “China-U.S. trade to be more balanced,” noted that “only cooperation, rather than pressuring each other can effectively solve the current problems we are facing.”

    How Xi will reconcile those comments with his Thursday visit to California – a state that exports $14 billion dollar worth of products to China, but imports a whopping $120 billion – remains to be seen.

    However, if you see in the Chinese press tomorrow that such issues will be handled with “mutual respect and mutual non-interference,” you’ll know that Vice-President Xi has passed the test to become President Xi.