By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

CANNES, France – When a colleague heard that the G-20 economic summit was going to be held in Cannes, his reaction was not unlike that of many others I know: “Are they that tone-deaf?”

Cannes, after all, with its tony hotels, celebrity-studded film festival, and a beach filled with a bevy of beauties, conjures up both New and Old World high society and glamour.  The image of government leaders – even with sleeves rolled up – working to fix the world economic crisis in a place synonymous with wealth and luxury suggests that heads of state are far more out of touch with the on-the-ground realities of everyday folk.

But after conversations with members of the local community, Cannes isn’t quite what it seems. Or what it might have seemed once long ago.

"We're all suffering economically," said Yvette Leibovici, a local resident. "We're affected just like everybody else."

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Leibovici once ran her own property business with seven to eight employees.  She had to let go of her staff and is now just an employee herself at a real estate agency that specializes in short-term rentals. 

She and a colleague said tourism – one of two industries that underpin the Cannes economy – had definitely slowed during the past season and there had been fewer holiday-goers in town.

The most recent tourism data available shows that in 2009 the city of Cannes welcomed 1.8 million visitors. While more recent tourism statistics for Cannes were not readily available (despite a visit to the Tourism office at the G-20 Media Center), statistics for the larger region indicate that growth has been slow.  Hotel bookings for the greater region of the south of France, which includes the French Riviera, saw only a 0.1 per cent increase in August (peak holiday season) this year compared to August 2010.

Losses in revenue have been offset, however, by the other critical industry: a reasonably healthy stream of large-scale conferences, including the G-20.  Just Wednesday morning, in fact, Leibovici said she had fielded calls from three different clients about renting properties.

But as with many small European cities, Cannes and its 70,000 people are caught in the middle of changing economic tides.

Leibovici, whose family dates back six generations in Cannes, said life had become harder for residents in the face of growing costs – in particular, real estate prices that are being driven sky-high by buyers and investors coming in from overseas.

Young French people especially are hard hit, continued Leibovici, in part because they can’t afford to buy their own homes and also because there are no long-term job prospects.  "The young don't want to stay here, and they don't want to come here.”

The city instead attracts the old, she said, likening it to a retirement destination.

“The prestige of Cannes has diminished,” continued Leibovici.

No downturn for the wealthy
Diminished, of course, is a relative term.

"It's been a very good year," said Sander Smids, a florist who moved to Cannes from the Netherlands 25 years ago. "Most of my clients are very well-off," he said, showing us an order for 2,000 euros ($2,760) worth of roses that had just been ordered by a customer who hails from the Middle East.

Some of his clients are hotels, said Smids, but most are private individuals, often Russian or Middle Eastern.  And they make up the “international” money that keeps afloat businesses catering to the high-end market.

Smids’ overflowing shop is in the center of Cannes, but he said owners of neighboring small retailers had complained that it was getting harder to stay in business just serving the local community.

On Wednesday, a day ahead of the G-20 summit talks, the street housing the florist was eerily lifeless since the French authorities had sealed off the neighborhood for security reasons. Only a handful of businesses were open, including the florist, perhaps optimistic that that G-20 delegates and journalists would make up for the dearth of foot traffic.

Nevertheless, Smids said, "The G-20 is good.”

"I may be losing a week's business," he continued. "But maybe this [coverage of the G-20 in the press] will bring back the name of Cannes."

And just in case anyone doubted the local spirit, cafe owner Sophie Espereno shrugged off the suggestion her hometown had lost any of its luster.

"Cannes will always be Cannes," she said.

With additional reporting by NBC News’ Nancy Ing.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent  

NICE, France – As the Group of 20 leaders, aka the G-20, begin descending on the French Riviera for their annual summit this week, demonstrators have started to converge, too.

Protest organizers said some 6,000 people were expected to participate Tuesday in what they said would be their biggest march, but the group gathered around De Lattre de Tassigny Square in Nice looked to be a fraction of that forecast.

Despite the low turnout, the variety of interests represented was high. Some 40 different organizations, from the large (think Oxfam France and Greenpeace) to the small (local trade unions and grassroots Nice citizens' groups) had joined forces. There were South Korean trade unionists and nurses from Australia.

"I'm here to show support for Tibet," said Patrick Magne, a 50-something Nice resident toting a giant “Free Tibet” flag.  "And to demonstrate against the G-20.  China's government is a member of the G-20, and they've committed atrocities in Tibet."

“But,” he added as he looked at the myriad of demonstrators, “this protest here – it represents all my ideals and values."

---

Many of the placards called for higher taxes on the wealthy, an end to free trade, or a dissolution of the G-20.  There were also more specialized voices in the mix, such as the one urging support for the women of Fukushima, the site of the nuclear power plant that was critically damaged by Japan's earthquake and tsunami last March.

"We're not happy with the financial system that has crushed everyone and crushed the whole world," said Linda Zuppiroli, a local Italian-French resident. 

Zuppiroli, who is retired, said she and her husband had participated in many demonstrations in the past, but "they were to do with human rights."

They'd decided to join Tuesday's march because they felt life had become more difficult and more costly with "fewer liberties. … Too few people have equal access to opportunities or resources and everyone is paying for the mistakes of the greedy."

"The world debt system is destroying Europe and will destroy your country, too," said Jean Galmzhorn, a Frenchman who works in the construction business, where he says rampant property speculation and sky-high real estate prices have contributed to the decline of the quality of life in his community.

High security
Despite the low turnout, the French authorities were taking no chances.  An estimated 12,000 security forces have been deployed across the French Riviera.

Police speedboats and jet-skis bobbed side by side with the super yachts in the picturesque Cannes and Nice harbors.  Hovering over the demonstrators were two helicopters. And on virtually every street corner of the protest route were clusters of helmeted riot police with batons and shields at the ready.

Their presence seemed rather incongruous with the protest's somewhat festive and family-friendly atmosphere set against the sunny backdrop of the French Riviera.

"It does seem as though fewer people are taking part," said Galmzhorn, whose infant was sleeping in a stroller.  "I've participated in demonstrations like this for 10 years, and it does seem to be fewer people."

"Maybe they're too preoccupied with making ends meet," he added.  "Or maybe they're too busy trying to find a way to speculate, too."

With additional reporting from NBC's Peter Jeary and Nancy Ing.
 

Related story: Occupy the Champs Elysees? Non, merci!

BEIJING – Xin Xin is a 24-year-old west Beijing native who runs her own media consultancy.

In 2006, she bought a limited edition Mini Cooper GP.  Only three of them exist in China.  Two years later, with her parents’ help, she forked over $200,000 in cash for a pink Porsche Cayman.  "I like the lines of the car," she said.  "It's very pretty....  And I like changing gears so you can accelerate very quickly." 

It's extraordinary enough to hear that someone this young in a nation still making the transition from a low-income to a middle-income economy can buy a top-shelf German sports car.  (In cash! In a city with Beijing's traffic problems!)

But what's more remarkable, for retailers and advertisers, is that Xin Xin’s not the only one.  In fact, many other young Chinese women are snapping up high-performance sports cars.  (One woman named Guo Meimei was pilloried after she posted on China's Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo, photos of herself with some of her cars, including a Maserati and a Lamborghini.  At the time, she claimed to be working for the Red Cross Society of China, which triggered a flurry of Netizen speculation that she was siphoning funds, the Red Cross was corrupt, or she was the mistress of some official.)

Fiat – whose Maserati brand now counts China as its second biggest market after the U.S. – says 30 percent of its Maserati customers in the mainland are women – far greater than the percentage of women buyers in Europe or the U.S., which ranges from 2 to 5 percent.  

The number of women who buy Ferraris in China is double the global average.  About 300 models were sold in the mainland in 2010, with women accounting for 20 percent of the sales. 

"[Women] are  much more involved in China about buying the car: the look, the feel, the actual decision to buy the car," said Matthew Bennett, Asia-Pacific Director at Aston Martin. 

But they're not just, ahem, steering the decision on what family car to purchase.   

They're buying high-performance sports cars for themselves.

---

"The culture is very different," said Angelica Cheung, Editorial Director of Vogue China.  "A lot of women in China are very independent women....  They really made their own fortune.  They earned their own success.  And they just feel that, I can have what men have." 

Indeed.  Xin Xin, who takes her cars out regularly to a local track to race other drivers, said, "We Chinese girls not only have a heart of girls, we also have a wild heart for driving sports cars.  You can feel the charm of racing cars just like boys do." 

Which drives sports car aficionado Paolo Gasparrini, well, a little nuts.

"I am thinking of my country, Italy, you don't give your sports car to your wife, frankly speaking, not so easy, here it's easy," he said.  On a regular basis, Gasparrini sees young Chinese women driving a high-performance sports model around the streets of Shanghai. 

"You see much more here than in Europe, [where] we have a different attitude about car[s]," he continued.  "The men, we are very jealous about [our] cars....  But here it's fantastic.  It's very, very open." 

Role reversal
In fact, as president of L'Oreal China, Gasparrini thinks the average Chinese luxury consumer is very open to displaying symbols of wealth and power in ways that their European or American counterparts might be a little shy about. 

"I think that in the Chinese culture there is not a taboo" about men spending time and money on grooming products, he said.  Ten years ago, such products were virtually nonexistent in China.  Today, it's an industry worth nearly $800 million.  

"Nobody pulls your leg if you take care of your face...so little by little more and more Chinese men use [these grooming] products," said Gasparrini, whose company dominates the men's sector with its Biotherm and L'Oreal Paris lines.  In fact, 30 percent of Biotherm's overall sales come from its men's skincare products. 

They're consumed by Chinese men like Jacky Sun, an ebullient young Shanghai native who had just purchased a Biotherm skin cleanser.  "More and more of my friends like to use these things, because they think it's very important...to leave a good impression on other people," he said. 

A recent survey by the Hurun Group, a consultancy which tracks China’s wealthy elite, finds that these impressions are critical to the rich.  

“Chinese luxury consumers are in general younger, many under 40 years old….  Furthermore, they are mainly new rich, with a rather short history of luxury consumption.  Therefore, the social function of luxury goods is most important to them,” according to the GroupM Knowledge—Hurun Wealth Report 2011.

But some luxury goods also serve a practical function.   

The 'man bag'
Going back to our young Shanghai native, Sun possesses another important status accessory – the man-bag. 

"The purse?  My friend says that's a purse," laughed Sun as he held up his small shoulder bag.  "This way I can make my hands free, and it can take my wallet, my key, small stuff, so I like it....  Sometimes my friends from America will tease me that it's a purse, a woman's purse, but I still like it.  I don't care." 

As a report by the Los Angles Times put it, “Luxury leather goods makers can't believe their luck:  Both sexes in the world's most populous country adore purses.” 

“Our survey shows about thirty percent of male consumers buy bags or shoes regularly,” said Mao Mao Xun, Beauty Director at Men’s Health China.  Moreover, “Chinese men have a different view of masculinity from that in the West.” 

A random sampling of interviews with young men in central Beijing suggests the practical benefits of toting around a small handbag outweigh any Western conventions of masculinity.   

Jing, who did not want to give his full name, was toting a leather clutch during a visit to Sanlitun Village one Saturday afternoon.  It was given to him by his mother, and he raved about its functionality.  Other men said they’d rather wear a shoulder bag than have a bulky wallet and cell phone jammed into their pockets. 

“Given the commuting nature of our Chinese consumer, we find that cross-body bags, bags that hang over their body, are much more popular than they would be here in the United States,” said Victor Luis, President of Coach International Retail, which has designed special editions for the China market.  In fact, male consumers make up half of Coach’s mainland China sales of premium handbag and accessories. 

And it’s not just Coach.  All the foreign luxury brands sell well in China. 

”Bags are very discernible,” said Mao.  “You can easily tell the brand by a bag.  Many Chinese buy these products to be known, to be noticed.” 

There’s no question these young consumers get noticed.

Xin Xin, the owner of the Pink Porsche, is already working on her next purchase. 

"Lamborghini," she said confidently. 

And this time she's planning to buy it with her own cash.

 

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

ON THE ROAD TO SIRTE, Libya – It started with confusion. There were rumors on Twitter and then reports by foreign media that Sirte, Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown, had fallen.

A military commander from the Misrata brigade told us "there were still houses to clear," not quite confirming or denying the news. 

When we called the National Transitional Committee's press office, a man said, "Sirte is finished." We asked him how he knew. His reply was, "It was on TV."

En route to Sirte, we began hearing from militiamen at checkpoints that Gadhafi had been captured and was being brought back to Misrata, home to one of the strongest militias that rose up against his 42-year rule.

With no cell signal and amidst general chaos, we couldn't verify anything on the ground.  The only thing that was clear was the gathering force of exultation that was evident even on this lonely stretch of road in the North African desert.

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‘Blood did not run in vain!’
We decided to set up for a live shot beside the highway instead of continuing onto Sirte.

Vehicles painted in the colors of the new Libyan flag began gathering around a checkpoint and bridge behind us. Rebel forces driving back west towards Misrata shouted in jubilation. Men fired their guns into the air. Others shouted, “Our martyrs' blood did not run in vain!"

We began hearing that Gadhafi had been killed. Fighters stopped to show us cellphone footage purportedly of his body.  In one video, the body was in the back of a vehicle with a white cloth wrapped around his head.  In another, the body was shirtless and on the ground; men picked him up and turned him over and then covered him.

"He was shot in the neck," said Fathi Bashagha, a Misrata military commander and NATO liaison. He was trying to get back to Misrata, ahead of a large convoy rumored to be carrying Gadhafi's body. 

Moments later, a large convoy of 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks, SUVs, and sedans drove by on the outside lane. 

Shadowing them were a ragtag bunch of vehicles driven by cheering militiamen – so caught up in the moment that a couple rear-ended each other, creating a small traffic jam in front of us.

Grim souvenirs
As we continued to try to get official confirmation from either the Misrata military council or the interim government in Tripoli, more fighters stopped to show us "souvenirs." 

One man had a military cap he claimed belonged to Gadhafi. Another showed a ring, a hat, a nine-millimeter handgun, and a bottle of shampoo that he said were taken from the basement housing the former leader.

But by far the most troubling sights were the bodies of what fighters claimed were Moatassam, Gadhafi’s son, and Abu Bakr Yunis, one of Gadhafi's most trusted senior military leaders.  The body of the former appeared to have a bullet hole in the back of his neck; half of the latter's face was a strange shade of blue.

And then there were those who were alive. 
A truck drove by with dozens of men crowded into the back; we assumed they were prisoners because they were not cheering.

One sedan stopped in front of our van.  Rebel fighters proudly scrambled out to show off two men – black Africans, mercenaries perhaps – tied up in their trunk, alive; they looked alert and stared at us quizzically. 

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

TRIPOLI – Even from a remote perch in Libya, we heard about the horrific story making waves in China.

Last Thursday, a two-year-old girl crossing a street by herself in the city of Foshan in China’s southern Guangdong Province was hit by a car. The driver paused briefly as the girl lay between the front and rear wheels and then tore off, thumping her now-limp body again. 

Soon after, a second vehicle rolled over the girl, with the driver presumably unaware that a body lay on the road. The second driver also did not stop.

As if both these acts were not outrageous enough, 18 more people – on foot, on motorbikes, or on bicycles – passed by the girl, lying inert on the ground, and did nothing. Even a mother with her own child ignored the victim.

(Warning the video is very graphic, but it can seen here from a Chinese broadcast or here from the BBC).

It wasn’t until a female trash collector saw her and proceeded to pick the girl up that she was moved to the side of the road. The trash collector asked passers-by who the girl belonged to, and eventually the mother appeared, distraught, to claim her daughter named Yueyue.

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All of this was caught on surveillance cameras. A clip was posted on China’s popular micro blog, Sina Weibo on Sunday, generating a huge outcry as netizens counted the number of people who glanced at the girl and ignored her plight – all in the seven minutes she lay on the road until the Good Samaritan carried her to safety.

The story, which has been a leading headline on all of China’s news sites, touched a nerve in the country, with many decrying the lack of moral standards and general disregard for fellow human beings.

One report quoted the first driver as saying, “If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan."

Some news reports and online discussions made the point that civil behavior is not always rewarded in China. Many people fear they’re being subject to some sort of scam while others remember still a well-known case from 2006, when a man helped a woman who had fallen only to have her accuse him of causing the injury to begin with.  She filed a suit against him, in which the judge ruled the man wouldn’t have come to her aid had he not caused the fall.

 

State-run news agency Xinhua has reported both drivers of the vehicles that ran over the girl have been apprehended by police.

Yueyue, meanwhile, is in critical condition with serious brain injuries, breathing with the help of a ventilator. Her parents are asking eyewitnesses to come forward with any additional information.

The story of Yueyue’s hit-and-run stands in stark contrast to another story that picked up steam online over the weekend.

Last Friday afternoon, a woman fell into a scenic tourist lake in Hangzhou, the capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang. A Western woman who was walking by saw the Chinese woman struggling and quickly jumped into West Lake to save her. 

After swimming back to shore, the foreigner dragged her onto the bank. The victim remained conscious and appeared out of danger. Police turned up ten minutes later, and the Western woman left quietly. Several websites reported she was American.

What was notable in this instance was the response of those who read the story online.

In addition to giving the rescuer high praise (“That American girl is great, she has a beautiful character”), people also made unfavorable comparisons to Chinese behavior:

“According to Chinese laws and regulations, if she hadn’t pushed the girl into the water, why ever would she save her?”

Thanks to China Digital Times for the translations.

Adrienne Mong is NBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is on assignment in Libya.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

MISRATA, Libya – It was a sign that perhaps life was getting back to some kind of normal in Libya. 

Last weekend, Turkish Airlines resumed direct commercial flights from Istanbul to Tripoli.  One week later, the Boeing jet was packed with families with very small children returning to the Libyan capital, despite the fact that the NATO no-fly zone remains in effect.

On the ground, it wasn’t quite normal yet.

The drive from Tripoli to Misrata, which is only 120 miles, takes between two and three hours these days because of the series of checkpoints that dot the main road, slowing traffic down every few miles.  The rebel militiamen are still on the look-out for pro-Gadhafi supporters.  Some are more diligent than others, stopping vehicles to ask for IDs; others wave them on with nary a glance.

In Misrata itself, life was definitely not quite normal.

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The main strip that runs through the town, Tripoli Street, was a key battleground and the site of fierce fighting that broke out in February and lasted three months.  Burnt-out buildings line both sides of the thoroughfare today; those that remain somewhat intact bear scars from gunfire and heavy artillery.

“It was scary,” said Mohammed Abdul Majid, a Misrata-born native whose parents came from Sudan.  “We saw all the firing everywhere.”

His home is just off Tripoli Street, on the second floor of a building pockmarked with bullet holes, but the fire damage was so bad that he moved to his sister’s place across town.

When we ran into him, he and a friend were trying to open the roll-down steel gate to the first floor storage room – the fighting had bent it out of shape, and they couldn’t roll it back up.

Abdul Majid wanted to store some new appliances, including a refrigerator he said he’d bought before the war.  “This is for me.  Before, I needed [to have a] party,” he laughed.  “I will fix the current home.  And then have a party.”

Down Tripoli Street, Mahmood al Gazil was fixing up a photo studio also badly damaged by the fighting earlier this year.  The owner had hired him to repair the store, and he was working alone.

“A lot of the guys who own the shops are on the frontline, so they are busy,” he said.  In the meantime, he’s working without pay.  “There is no money right now.”

And what if the people who are supposed to pay him die fighting on the frontline before he gets paid?  He smiled and shrugged, “I
am not worried, because then they died for our country.”

In the meantime, al Gazil said he has enough savings to see him and his family through for the foreseeable future. 

Mahdi al Toumy, a university student, was sitting in the shade of a corner building on Tripoli Street; his family is one of the few still living there.

“There is maybe one other family in the area still living here,” he told us.  “All the neighbors have gone, staying with relatives in other neighborhoods.”

Traffic appears normal even if the buildings don’t. At one intersection there was even a policeman in a pristine, though slightly wrinkled, white uniform directing cars.

At a villa now housing the office of Doctors Without Borders, Mohammed Hasb el Rasoul said that despite the heavy fighting in nearby Sirte, they did not have any injured from the frontlines coming through the hospitals or clinics in Misrata.

“It was a kind of a big mess back in July,” said el Rasoul, a Sudanese man who has been living in Misrata since 1993 and now works as a radio operator for MSF. 

But perhaps the most bemusing sight is one that suggests just how much Libya teeters between normal and not normal.

Everywhere there are pick-up trucks driving around with mounted anti-aircraft guns or 50-calibre guns in the back, wrapped in some sort of covering, their tell-tale barrels pointing toward the sky.  It suggests that the fighting is done.

At least for now.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News

BEIJING –They are a feared species, threatening to invade America’s Midwest and cause the collapse of an ecosystem and a $7 billion industry.

They prompted one U.S. lawmaker to say, “We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed-ahead mode.”

“They” are Asian carp.

The fish were imported from Southeast Asia in the 1970s to help clean ponds at wastewater treatment facilities and fish farms in the American South. 

But they escaped into the Missouri and Illinois rivers during flooding of the Mississippi River. A twenty-pound Asian carp measuring three feet long was found just six miles south of Lake Michigan in July 2010.

Biologists worry that the invasive fish will starve native ones to death. A hardy creature that breeds easily and with no natural predators in the U.S., the Asian carp can eat up to 40 percent of its body weight in plankton every day.

Concern is so great that Asian carp have been “the subject of state lawsuits, EPA and Congressional hearings, and U.S. Supreme Court motions,” according to a U.S.-based environment magazine.

A task force comprising more than 20 state, regional, and federal officials monitors the fish’s every move.

There’s even a carp czar, appointed by the White House, to oversee the $80 million federal effort to keep the Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. 

But the state of Illinois has a simpler solution.

Send them to China.

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‘If you can’t beat ‘em, you eat ‘em’
A few years ago, Chinese-American businessman David Shu was on a trip to China, where he met some clients who had heard about attempts to poison the Asian carp in Illinois rivers and asked, “Why are they killing the Asian carp?”

Shu teamed up with Ross Harano, who had just stepped down as Illinois trade director, to find a way to persuade Chinese to buy Asian carp from the state.

The problem was one that anyone who’s ever set foot in a Chinese restaurant knows: the Chinese like their seafood fresh. That’s what the restaurant aquariums are for – to keep fish and shellfish alive until the very last minute.

The Asian carp from Illinois were going to be sold frozen; moreover, they were too pricey for local Chinese consumers.

So Harano, who is now Director for International Marketing at Big River Fish, found himself mapping out a marketing strategy that ultimately made more economic sense than simply just trying to pit their frozen product against local varieties sold live in China.

Coining the term “wild-caught” to market the Illinois carp, Big River Fish try to emphasize its freshness. 

“There are no pollutants,” said Harano in a conversation with NBC News. “The fish feed on algae in Illinois rivers. They have a very non-muddy taste.”

“We sell it as a high-end fish to high-end restaurants, so the cost is not an issue,” he said. In particular, Big River Fish is ringing up sales mostly in northern China. “There’s a better market for fish like this in northern China than down south,” he added.

In July 2010, the Beijing Zuochen Animal Husbandry Co. agreed to buy Asian carp from Big River Fish. The aim was to ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of this year. The small start-up from Illinois could make $20 million a year exporting the carp to China.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, you eat ‘em,” said Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn at a much heralded signing ceremony.

The deal seems an elegant solution to a worrying ecological problem. 

But it also appears to address, in a more modest way, another issue: unemployment. 

With a state grant of $2 million, Big River Fish is in the final stages of acquiring a new 10,000-square foot plant in Pike County, to which it will add another 30,000-square feet, enabling it to reach its export target.

The new plant is not the 80,000-square foot facility Big River Fish had hoped to purchase back in March, owing to a paperwork glitch. The hiccup put the company “behind track” on its timetable, CEO Lisa McKee acknowledged to NBC News.

Once the new plant is secured – hopefully by Nov. 1, according to McKee and President Rick Smith – Big River Fish will increase its plant work force from 12 to 61.  An additional 120 jobs will come from hiring more fishermen to harvest more carp.  Not insignificant, says Harano, for a county of 17,000 people that in 2010 registered more than 10 percent unemployment.

Slowly creating jobs via China
The Big River Fish deal exemplifies the kind of salesmanship Quinn wants for his state. He continued to tout the culinary advantages of Illinois carp even last month during a rare trip to China.

“We have wonderful rivers in our state,” he told NBC News just before dashing off to attend a special carp luncheon. “Some of the freshest waters in the country, and the Asian carp we have are big and meaty. We catch them wild, and we ship them to China.”

Quinn peddled other Illinois specialties during his eight-day trip through China – with the aim of drumming up business, jobs creation, and investments in his home state.

In a major coup, he persuaded Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., a top wind turbine manufacturer in northwestern China, to build a $200-million wind farm in Lee County, which will provide electricity to some 25,000 homes. 

It’s the largest U.S. project to date for Goldwind, and the Illinois governor stressed that it will create a dozen permanent jobs and more than 100 construction jobs.

Another deal announced on Quinn’s trip was for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to sell 180,000 tons of soybeans to China by the end of next year – a deal worth about $50 million. China already buys a quarter of all U.S. soybeans and is Illinois’ third largest exports destination.

Chinese trade & economic reforms critical
But there are skeptics about just how much Quinn and others can recoup his state’s job losses and whether these minute steps towards creating jobs by boosting exports will be enough.

There seems to be consensus among most pundits in Washington that selling more American goods to growing economies, like China, will mean more jobs. 

But getting more U.S. goods into China requires a few substantive reforms on the part of Beijing, skeptics say. 

One of those measures is currency reform, and the Chinese central government is balking at Washington’s efforts to get it to move more aggressively to strengthen the yuan against the U.S. dollar.  A weak yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper and imports from the U.S. and other countries more expensive.

More specifically, for Illinois, a survey from the Economic Policy Institute found that the Land of Lincoln lost 118,200 jobs in the past decade as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with China. 

In particular, traditional manufacturing industries took the brunt of the job losses: auto parts production, fabricated metal products, electronics, and specialty steel – areas in which the Chinese have sought to compete.

“Increases in the bilateral trade deficit with China will lead to growing trade-related job displacement in Illinois for some time to come,” said Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute survey, unless Beijing reforms its trade and economic policies – particularly on the Chinese currency. 

“Until those policies are reformed,” he wrote in an email to NBC News.  “The growth of imports and job displacement will vastly exceed the growth of export-supporting jobs for Illinois, and all other U.S. states.”

BEIJING—A year ago today, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a writer and activist imprisoned in a northeastern Chinese prison.

Today he remains in jail for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power,” serving out an 11-year sentence.

His wife, Liu Xia, remains under unofficial house arrest in Beijing for no crime.

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A slender 51-year old poet and photographer, Liu has been cut off from the rest of the world ever since it was announced her husband would be given the prize.  She has no phone or Internet access, is under constant police watch, receives the rare visit from family members, and seldom is able to venture out.

“Liu Xia…leads a lonely and oppressed life," the wife  of another dissident was quoted as saying in a profile of Liu. 

NBC News interviewed Liu Xia in September 2010, just days before her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize.  She was skeptical that the Nobel committee would award Xiaobo the prize.  She described his mood as being good and his outlook as optimistic.  She remembered having premonitions when she read his manifesto for political reform--Charter 08--knowing he would go to prison for writing it.  She talked about the possibility of traveling to Prague for an exhibition of her photographs.

She appeared composed, bright, and alert.

But that time seems a world away today.  Liu has not been seen or heard in public since.

Her treatment is, sadly, not unique.

The Chinese government has taken a hard line against dissenting voices.  Another example widely cited is Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer and activist who has been beaten several times and had his property destroyed or confiscated.  His wife and daughter have also been subjected to unofficial house arrest.

Again, neither the wife nor daughter are guilty of any crime.  Yet, as one commentator in China observed this week, “[T]he Chinese government are detaining a six-year old girl.”