By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

DEGE VILLAGE, Yunnan Province, China – It was the clamshells that were the most startling.

Larger than my hand, they lay whole on the parched earth, presenting an incongruous image of a drought that people in this part of southwestern China say has been the worst in a century. 

The clamshells were all that were left behind in the Dege Haizi Reservoir, the main source of water for the residents of Luliang County in Yunnan Province.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News Clamshells are all that have been left behind in the Dege Haizi Reservoir

"This is a very serious drought," said Ling Shiwei, a 75-year-old subsistence farmer with a toothy grin despite the grim circumstances. "From July to now, we've had nothing but dry weather."

A little rain fell in Luliang at the very beginning of April and just in the past week, but nowhere near enough to make a difference. 

While parts of southwest China are entering the flood season, Luliang County in Yunnan Province, is still suffering from what some people describe as the worst drought in a century.  

Following the seasonal droughts of recent years, this year's dry spell is wreaking havoc on crops in Yunnan. The dried-out reservoir helped to feed what was once the largest irrigation plain in the region, enabling Luliang's rich farmland to produce massive amounts of rice and tobacco. 

The region's staple crops may be the only victims for now, but farmers are beginning to worry that if it continues any longer, they'll be next.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News Farmers from Dege Village find themselves taking longer breaks as the drought persists. CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO: Chinese province hit by drought.

No harvest yet
Already, they're affected.  Some estimates say the drought has had an impact on over fifty million people. People such as Luliang's tobacco farmers, who have been anxiously awaiting this time of year when the rain is traditionally supposed to begin falling again.

In the fields scattered around the reservoir, tobacco farmers were tilling the land – the color of burnt sienna – just in case rain does come.

"This year's harvest will be half as much as previous years," said Feng Huasen, a 52-year-old tobacco farmer from Dege Village who was helping to cultivate the fields. 

In a county populated predominantly by subsistence farmers, tobacco is a critical source of income. Feng said the tobacco companies were providing subsidies this year to help farmers who can't make ends meet.

"For the highest quality tobacco, we would be paid almost three cents per pound," said Feng.  But if the farmers end up having to grow corn, which is a hardier and much less-water intensive crop, "we would only get paid 0.14 cents," said Feng.

Ling already grows corn and potatoes; the latter were tiny, gnarled tubers when we stopped by his home inside Dege village as his wife prepared lunch. Their midday meal consisted of a small bowl of fried potato chunks, a small bowl of fried potato crisps, and several smaller bowls of pickled vegetables. 

They were still able to feed themselves – just barely.

Others aren't taking a chance. Of Dege's population of 6,000, only the elderly and children can be seen around town these days.  Most young adults left for greener pastures earlier this year. 

"They've gone," said Feng Jianhua, a 45-year-old farmer who would have taken off as well, but he needed to stay behind to tend to his flock of sheep and goats. "It's too dry. You can't grow anything.  They've gone to find work."

"Many of the young people have left," echoed Ling Jiwen, a 40-year-old farmer who also remained in Dege to look after his ill parents. "More than usual this year, much more. Even some of the older ones, the 50-year-olds, are going out to find work."

Adrienne Mong/NBC News Tobacco farmers from Dege Village turning over the nutrient-rich soil in the hope that rain will come next month.

Root causes
Chinese officials have been routinely quoted in the media as blaming this year's drought on climate change, and some scientists agree.

"It's cyclical," said Professor Qian Weihong from the Department of Atmospheric Studies at Beijing University. "There were periods like this back in the late 1950s and the late 1960s."

But others say there's more to it.

"The ecological system and the environment have accumulated so many problems in so many years, [after] decades of deforestation [and] unplanned farming," said Yang Yong, an environmentalist and scientist with the Hengduan Mountain Research Center. "The damage on the ecosystem after so many years shows up with extreme climate conditions."

Yang also noted a problem somewhat unique to Yunnan. The province abuts the Tibet Autonomous Region, which is the source for several of Asia's major rivers, including the Mekong – some of which also flow through Yunnan. Chinese officials have been busy the past decade damming those rivers for hydropower.  (According to International Rivers, an environment NGO, China has more than half the world's 50,000-some large dams.)

"There are many dams and basins in Yunnan," said Yang. "And in every basin, many villages with high density populations live off one or two reservoirs.  If the upstream reservoirs don't have enough water in the dry season, the downstream reservoirs will be greatly affected... So the water management is more critical in this long-lasting dry season." 

The dramatic change from drought to flooding in Yunnan's neighboring provinces does suggest water management is a key problem.

In the meantime, the Chinese government has launched short-term measures like cloud-seeding to create artificial rainfall digging for new wells, and running supplies of bottled water to the most affected areas. 

In Dege, bottles of water were distributed from the town's only secondary school on Mondays, and empty bottles were collected on Thursdays.

"Before we had a drinking water machine at home," said Huang Lu Yao, a pint-sized 12-year-old student cradling a nearly-full bottle in his arms. "Now it's bottles of water.  They give us six bottles. Each day I bring one bottle home, and each day I bring an empty one back to school. It's enough for one person."

Residents in Dege still had running tap water, but everyone we saw used it sparingly and only for washing.

They, however, are much more fortunate than some of their fellow farmers.

Hiking for water

A few miles up the gently rolling mountains, in Xiangzipo, villagers were hiking at least a mile over rocky hills to draw water from the one pond still remaining – and fast shrinking.

An 80-year old farmer with a slight frame had just finished washing his laundry by the side of the pond and was making his way methodically over the uneven dirt path back home.  His freshly washed clothes were divided between two straw baskets hanging from a pole across his bony shoulders. Underneath a pile in one basket lay a few plastic bottles.

"This pond belongs to Lunan County," said Qian Yilian, a middle-aged farmer from Xiangzipo, part of the neighbouring Luliang County.  "The people in Lunan don't want us to use it.  They're worried because they heard that we get water to feed the herds."

Qian said her village also received bottled water from the government, but the deliveries were erratic because of the difficult road access, and the supply was not enough to do more than drink.  For washing and for feeding their livestock, they all made the trek to the Lunan pond.

In fact, right after lunch, a steady trickle of Xiangzipo villagers pitched up on the edge of the pond, almost all followed by water buffaloes drawing carts bearing round tin water tanks they would quickly fill. No one loitered for very long – perhaps mindful of drawing too much attention.

"[The people in Lunan County] don't want us using their water," said one woman who had come to wash her family's clothes. "But what can we do?"

Back down in Dege, a handful of farmers dug away at the bottom of the dried out reservoir. Though the lake bed was rock hard, the nutrient-rich soil was valuable. "I'm going to mix it with manure and use it for my farmland," said Ling Shiwei, who was tossing brick-sized blocks of the reservoir earth onto the back of his oxcart.

Though there is still no indication that regular rainfall will come, the farmers are paying no mind.  Life, some intimated, just goes on.

Others remained hopeful. "The drought wouldn't last longer than a year," said Feng Huasen, the tobacco farmer. "It's not possible for it to continue through the next year."

Stoicism and hope still springing eternal in this most desolate place.

BEIJING – An attacker with a kitchen cleaver burst into a kindergarten class in northwest China on Wednesday morning and hacked to death seven children and two adults, the latest in a string of violent attacks against school children.

Eleven other children were injured in the attack and are receiving treatment in a local hospital.

The attacker, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, killed himself after his bloody rampage, leaving the motive a mystery.

VIDEO: China kindergarten attack leaves nine dead

People are shocked and outraged by the incident, the fifth attack on school students since the end of March,  and fear more assaults will continue to spread across the country.

Copy cat crimes?

At least 17 people have been killed, mostly children, and dozens injured in the series of attacks that have been characterized as copycat crimes.

The first school assault took place on March 23, when Zheng Minsheng, 42, a laid-off doctor, stabbed eight elementary students to death and left five others badly wounded in Fujian province.

After a speedy trial, on April 28, Zheng was executed. On the same day he was put to death, Chen Kangbing, a 33-year-old former teacher, attacked 18 students and one teacher with a knife in the neighboring province of Guangdong.

And one day after that attack, Xu Yuyuan, a 47-year-old former insurance agent who was fired from his job, burst into a kindergarten class in Jiangsu Province with a knife and attacked 29 children and three adults.

Then, on April 30, hammer-wielding Wang Yonglai beat five children and a teacher in Shandong Province. He doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire, with two children in his arms. The two students were rescued, but Wang died on the scene.

AP

Medical staff attend to an injured child at a hospital after an attack in China's Shaanxi Province on Wednesday.

What's next?
China's active Netizens have been weighing in on the attacks and expressing fear that despite heightened vigilance, the assaults will continue to spread across the country.

"

It's too lenient to execute a killer like this! He should be stabbed to death just like what he did to the kids!" one angry Netizen wrote about Zheng's execution on Sohu.com, a leading web portal in China.

Another writer expressed concerns for school security: "Why haven't I heard this before? Schools used to need no security – they had open gates and were safe. Now I don't want to send my children to school!"

Some blame the deteriorating social and wealth gap for the violence: "This is a disease of the society. Wealth gap is so huge and the disadvantaged are living in hell. If this problem is not tackled, we'll see more attacks like this."

A small portion of Netizens expressed concerns about the killers' mental status: "Why was Zheng executed in such a short time? Shouldn't he deserve a check-up by a psychiatrist? Mental patients don't get treated and they can only go to jail."

Really a 'harmonious' society?

The public may never know the true motives behind all these attacks. A news blackout is common in China when matters are considered "threatening" or easy to "instigate social disorder." In such cases only official news outlets are available to the citizens.

Regarding the five school attacks, only the first case was widely investigated and reported by the Chinese media, but very few details can be found on the other four cases other than brief reports by official government news outlets like CCTV or Xinhua. Otherwise, independent online reporting and comments have been deleted hours after they are posted. Some Internet users have begun to comment on the lack of reporting on the attacks.

"You think hiding news like this will make our society really 'harmonious'?" wrote one Netizen

on another Web site Netease.com.

But even if the news of the attacks isn't making it into headlines on major Web portals in China, many Internet savvy users can still find and spread information with the help of private proxy servers.

Meanwhile, school security has been boosted everywhere. Police have sent out more security and patrol forces to schools all over China. Some schools equipped themselves with giant steel pitchforks as anti-violence weapons and self defense trainings are being offered to students and teachers.

Zhou Yongkang, China's chief of public security stressed, "We must take fast action to strengthen security for schools and kindergartens to create a harmonious environment for children to study and grow up."

But not everyone is confident in the security.

"I used to take my son out every weekend to public venues, but now I'm worried and prefer to just play with him in our neighborhood," said Tang, a woman who would only give her family name at the gate of her son's elementary school in Beijing.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News correspondent

SHANGHAI, China – I was keen to get a passport.

All around me, folks were waving their travel documents, rushing from country to country, and elbowing one another to get them stamped.

"They're fun," said a man who had traveled all the way from Hainan Island, China's southernmost province. In his hand were a dozen passports with stamps from seven or eight countries. "The one from Saudi Arabia is the best."

NBC News/Adrienne Mong

Visitors hanging out beside the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

I wouldn't know. The line to enter Saudi Arabia's pavilion was seven or eight people deep and wrapped around the block. We had too much ground to cover to spend what appeared to be at least an hour's wait.

But here at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, it's all about the passport.

The world's fair redux

First though, a bit on the Expo.

"I had no idea what an Expo was," confessed a native San Franciscan taking in the sights.  "But I want to know where the next one will be!"

Described by some journalists as the biggest and most lavish party that most of the world probably hasn't even heard about, the Expo is basically a souped-up world's fair for the 21st century.

Taking eight years to prepare, the event cost $4.2 billion to pull together – more than twice what was spent on getting Beijing ready for the 2008 Summer Olympics – although some have estimated it to be nearer to $45 billion once you throw in the facelift of Shanghai's infrastructure to accommodate all the visitors (a new airport terminal, new subway lines, etc.) 

An estimated 240 countries, international organizations, and companies are taking part in the Expo – most with their own pavilions laid out over a sprawling 2.5 square miles on prime riverside property in Shanghai. Opening on May 1, organizers are hoping to attract about 70 million visitors until it closes at the end of October of this year.

About 95 percent of those visitors are expected to be Chinese. 

NBC News/ Adrienne Mong

Denmark shipped in the Little Mermaid statue for the Shanghai Expo.

"Events [like this and] the Olympics are a way for the Communist Party to sort of broadcast their legitimacy," said Adam Minter, an American writer who has been following the travails of the construction of the USA Pavilion. (It nearly didn't get built, precipitating a potential diplomatic fracas between the U.S. and China.) 

But even in today's era of high-speed jet travel, the Expo still captures a bit of the original spirit of the world's fair and gives people a glimpse of places they will probably never get to.  

"We've never been overseas," said Hu Xin Yi, an elderly woman who sat with her husband on a bus for eight hours from Anhui province just to visit the Expo. "We've only traveled around China."
 
"China is not a terribly cosmopolitan place yet, despite the image we have of it," said Minter.  "Part of the idea from the Chinese government and the Shanghai government's point of view is let's bring the world to the Chinese people, because most Chinese people are not going to have the opportunity to travel abroad."

Stamping our way around the globe 
So back to those passports.

Everywhere we saw Chinese men with piles of passports.  It reminded me of the contractors I used to see on the Iraq-Jordan border, waiting to process the immigration paperwork for dozens of what the U.S. military called TCNs. ("Third Country Nationals," refers to Sri Lankans, Indians, Filipinos hired as contract labor to staff the dining facilities and other services on U.S. military bases.) 

Inevitably, we began judging pavilions on the basis of the national stamp. Especially the ones that didn't have a stamp, like Brazil.

A sign hung prominently at the exit: "We don't have the stamps yet, sorry for any inconvenience caused!" Some others missing stamps were several African and Caribbean countries, as well as Serbia, Armenia, and Greece. (OK, maybe under the circumstances, we may want to give Greece a pass.) 

We pitied the women with harried expressions standing behind counters at the pavilions for Moldova, Peru, or Pakistan – where people shoved their documents underneath their noses to get stamps.  We liked the "self-service" pavilions, where the stamps sat next to ink pads on counters for visitors to stamp their passports on their own.

But it's a shame that so many people seemed keener to collect their stamps instead of stopping to take a look around the displays. After all, the world's fair back in its day was responsible for introducing everyone to wondrous technological advances like the Eiffel Tower.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News
The Axis of Evil corner at the Shanghai Expo

Befriending China
In addition to learning about countries many will never get to, the Expo is shining a light on countries that some might not have even heard of.  Like San Marino.

Packed into a row of bite-sized nations like Malta, Lichtenstein, and Cyprus, San Marino's pavilion beckoned visitors inside, where a tourist might learn that San Marino is one of the world's oldest republics and the only surviving city-state. 

Moreover, it made Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen in 1861, and over a century later it became "one of the first Western States to recognize and establish official relations with the People's Republic of China in May 6, 1971."

One display panel stood out, however, reminding us just why governments and corporations might have felt compelled to participate in the Expo. Photos and posters proudly proclaimed San Marino's economic advantages: "tax relief for reinvested profits in anti-pollution and energy-saving projects," and a "corporate tax at 17 percent."

Slawomir Majman, commissioner-general of the Poland Pavilion, a stunning structure that resembled a giant paper cut-out – referencing a traditional Polish craft – explained why attendance is so important.

"From the Polish perspective, there is no other opportunity in the number of generations to come to make such a promotion in China," said Majman. "It's an absolute must to be here and to make use of the fact the Chinese government treats the Expo as a priority. We should never be able to tell so many people so many things about our country during any national promotion."

An extra nudge from China to encourage attendance probably helped, too. 

"It was made very clear by the Chinese – this was not a rumor – that failure to attend would be considered a diplomatic snub and there would be diplomatic and trade consequences," said Minter.

SLIDESHOW: Around the world at the Shanghai ExpoÂ

'Axis of Evil corner'
As a result, participants as varied as the U.S. and North Korea have pavilions on display, both of which were subsidized in part by China. But that was perhaps the only thing each had in common. 

We were not allowed to enter the USA Pavilion. ("We're not doing media tours this week," USA Pavilion staffers told us).

But we had no problem walking into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Pavilion,  which to the delight of cynics happened to sit next to Iran's Pavilion.  (It didn't take long for the "Axis of Evil corner" moniker to take hold in describing this particular pocket of the Expo.)

Inside the DPRK Pavilion, dozens of Chinese and the occasional South Korean posed in front of a giant poster of Juche Tower and a small bridge over Taedong River.  Archive video of the Korean War played on a loop in the background. 

And by the exit was yet another put-upon fellow, a skinny North Korean man, stamping passports.

BEIJING - Forty years ago, a decade before China set on its path of economic reform and development, the three material necessities required before couples married were the bicycle, a sewing machine, and a wristwatch – symbolizing the family's wealth and status.
 
Ten years later, the three items became a black and white television, a refrigerator, and a motorcycle.
 
Another decade later, in the 1990s, those items were replaced by a color TV set, an air conditioner, and a cell phone.
 
This century, what was once known as the "san da jian" (in Mandarin, literally meaning the "three big things" a couple needed before they married) has become, well, just a long list of consumer goods – computers, wide-screen LCD televisions, camcorders, washing machines, cars, homes.
 
"When we decorated our home, we bought all the appliances at the time – air con [for] each room, a washing machine, a TV," said Tina Wang, a 32-year-old Beijing native who showed us her two-bedroom flat near the capital's Fifth Ring Road.
 
With all these new appliances plus a car, the Wang household exemplifies China's growing middle-class wealth – and its growing energy consumption, all a function of the country's accelerated industrialization and urbanization in the past three decades. 
 
This, of course, comes at a cost.

Surge in greenhouse gas emissions 
China's total greenhouse gas emissions have surged in the same time period.  From 1970 to 2007, the total amount grew over seven times, according to China and to report commissioned by the United Nations and a Beijing university, "Sustainable Future, Towards a Low Carbon Economy and Society." 

In 2007, China overtook the United States as the world's highest CO2 emitter – although crucially its per capita emissions remain far below that of developed countries. Moreover, just as with China's economic growth, most of its energy consumption still comes from heavy industry, not from the transportation or residential sectors.
 
"Maybe sixty, seventy percent of Chinese energy consumption is still in the industrial sector," said Deborah Seligsohn, principal adviser of the China Climate, Energy & Pollution Program at the World Resources Institute. "If you look at the amount of energy that Chinese households use per square meter of housing space, it's much lower than in the West."
 
But that's all bound to change as economists and social scientists expect nearly 400 million Chinese to migrate from the countryside into cities over the next 20 years, more than the entire population of the United States. No doubt all these folks will want to be able to buy air conditioners, computers, and cars, too, just like the Wangs.
 
For the time being, though, industrial energy efficiency remains a key focus for the Chinese government. That -- and energy security.
 
"China has an energy problem more severe than the rest of the world," said Li Junfeng, the deputy director general of the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission – also known as the NDRC, the Chinese government's main economic policymaking body. "The cost of energy was far lower when most developed countries industrialized in the 1970s. Now we face fewer energy sources and higher prices."
 
Having enough power to fuel its modernization, then, remains of paramount concern to officials in Beijing. "If you recall way back to when there was the Sino-Soviet split, the big thing for the Chinese was they lost their access to Soviet oil so trying to use domestic sources is very, very important to the Chinese and has been for many, many decades," Seligsohn said.
 
The Communist Party communicated this sense of urgency as early as 2005, when its Central Committee approved the 11th Five-Year Plan, which introduced energy-consumption related goals. More recently, officials have begun to focus on climate change as well.
 
The country, which relies mostly on coal right now for its power, has set ambitious targets for 2020, when it wants to generate at least 15 percent of its energy from alternative sources like wind, solar, nuclear, and water. 
 
In fact, China outspent the U.S. by almost twice the amount on clean energy investments last year. In 2009, the former sunk $34.6 billion in low-carbon energy development industries – compared to the $18.6 billion spent by the U.S.  
 
For more on how China's attempts to race ahead with the development of renewable energies – and the challenges that might keep it from winning, watch Adrienne Mong's report as part of "Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future" on CNBC Thursday night at 8pm Eastern.   

In the meantime, watch this clip to see the ambitions of one "green" visionary take shape in Dezhou, aka Solar City.

 

BEIJING -- Call me a Luddite, but sometimes I feel like destroying a piece of machinery.

By Ed Flanagan, NBC Researcher

The sudden reappearance 2 weeks ago of long missing Chinese human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, near his hometown in Shaanxi province brought an end to the rampant speculation here over his well being and status in China. However, Gao's unwillingness or inability to provide independent media with details of his detention at the hands of Chinese state security raises continued questions over China's rights record and is yet another dark capstone in what has been so far, a very bad year for human rights in China.

It was just 14 months ago when Gao, a prominent human rights lawyer, was escorted out of his Beijing house by state security agents and completely off the grid by which outsiders can track political prisoners in China.

Gao, a longtime critic of the Chinese government and frequent champion of social issues deemed sensitive by the Chinese government such as Falun Gong, underground Christian churches and forced evictions of farmers, had been detained multiple times prior to last year and had in fact been given a 3 year jail sentence in December 2006 for subversion that was eventually suspended.

However, Gao's vocal criticisms of the government only earned him repeated brushes with China's Public Security Bureau (PSB). Increasingly, confrontations between Gao and the PSB became more violent as security agents resorted to brutal torture sessions and beatings which he wrote about in detail 2 years ago while in home detention under tight government surveillance.

In his writing, Gao described going in for a "re-education talk" only to find himself subjected to hours of torture that involved severe beatings, electric shocks to his genitals and cigarettes being put out on his face.

It was with this previous experience in mind that many feared the worst after his February 2009 disappearance. What made Gao's plight so irregular though was the government's unwillingness to provide even basic details about his location and status over such a prolonged period of time.

Asked in January this year about Gao's whereabouts, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, would only say that, "he is where he should be." Meanwhile, Chinese embassy staff in the United States insisted that Gao was alive and well in Xinjiang.

Gao's sudden reappearance late last month then begged the question: where had Gao been and why was he released? Answers to these critical questions are understandably not coming from the government, but surprisingly, have been equally unforthcoming from Gao himself.

In an interview earlier this week – likely to be his last, due to his sensitive status and conditions set out in his parole – Gao appeared "subdued" and unwilling to provide details of his 14 month ordeal. Though he reported his health was fine, he appeared thinner and concerned primarily with reuniting with his wife and daughter, who had fled China just prior to his disappearance and now live in asylum in the United States.

"I completely lost control of my emotions," said Gao tearfully, upon returning to his Beijing home and seeing his families shoes still lined up near the door, "because to me these are the three dearest people in the world and now, we're like a kite with a broken string."

"I don't have the capacity to persevere. On the one hand, it's my past experiences. It's also that these experiences greatly hurt my loved ones. This ultimate choice of mine, after a process of deep and careful thought, is to seek the goal of peace and calm."

A bad year for human rights
Gao's odyssey is merely an act in what has proven to be a hard year for political activists in China so far. The February upholding of a conviction and 11 year jail sentence for prominent human rights advocate, Liu Xiaobo, was another grim reminder of the effectiveness of China's "subversion laws" in batting down political and social dissent.
 
Liu, 54, is a Beijing academic who was deeply involved in the creation of "Charter 08," a political manifesto published online on December 10th, 2008 which outlined steps that its signees hoped would bring about reform and greater democratization of China's political and judicial systems.

Also in February, down in Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu, Tan Zuoren, 56, was convicted and given 5 years jail under the ubiquitous charge of "subversion of state power."

Officially, the charges stemmed from tracts written by Tan in 2007 which discussed the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident and a blood drive he organized in 2008 to commemorate those demonstrations. However, human rights groups believe that the stiff sentence is rooted in Tan's investigation into the collapse of scores of schools in the region following the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 that buried and killed thousands of children.

"China has no dissidents"
While severe jail sentences and broad use of subversion laws is not new to China, what makes these cases standout is the way in which foreign intervention has appeared to fail. Dating back to when China's "most favored nation" trade status was tied to a yearly congressional review of China's human rights record, the United States and other countries were sometimes able to use their trading power to push for leniency or a quiet release of politically sensitive prisoners.

Even following China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, there has long been a behind the scenes dialogue between China and the western world over human rights issues.

However, in recent months this relationship seems to have deteriorated. When a delegation of diplomatic officials representing 17 western countries attempted to enter the courtroom to witness Liu Xiaobo's petition ruling, they were turned away, leading to a curt, prepared statement from US Ambassador to China, John Huntsman Jr, being read outside Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court.

The China's response to the foreign delegation was equally terse. Speaking to reporters later that week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu declared, "China brooks no interference in its internal judicial affairs… China has no dissidents."

New light for old rules
With its international economic influence rapidly growing, China's government has grown increasingly bold not just in its methods, but also in the way it publically frames its national strategy for solidifying power at home.

Blistering op-ed pieces in the state newspaper chastising western media for being "employed as tools for national strategy," and an astounding interview by a remote county government official boasting he employed more than 12,000 spies to police a county of just 400,000 people. Both of these demonstrate how the paradigm has shifted and reflect a new political and social atmosphere here in China that the government is no longer hiding from international view. 

Though the Obama administration has begun to talk tougher on China's human rights issues, it is clear that with America's current economic woes and its continued interdependence on China, traditional forms of engagement may no longer be sufficient for dealing with a country that no longer feels the need to always follow the proverbial economic carrot.

BEIJING – A series of arrests in a lurid case of alleged wife-swapping has sparked a fierce national debate over criminalization of private sexual mores at a time when people are demanding greater freedom.

Ma Yaohai, a 53-year-old computer science professor, and 21 alleged members of a wife-swapping Internet chat room were charged with "group licentiousness" in the southeastern city of Nanjing.     

  

Ma, the oldest and most well educated of the group of 13 other men and eight women, reportedly held group sex parties at his home between 2007 and 2009. They could face up to five years in prison if convicted. 

'Wife-swapping' site

 
Ma says he was first introduced to the idea of "wife swapping" in 2003, although he didn't have a wife at the time. Actually, he said that his two failed marriages are the reason for his interest in group sex – so he could distract himself from his feelings of depression.

"It was purely consensual. There was no threat or any money involved," Ma said during a phone interview with NBC News. "Most of the people would just watch and leave, very few of them really engaged in real activities."   

In 2007 he started his own online chat group that was described as a forum for "making friends through couple travel." During the next two years, Ma allegedly organized 18 orgies in the apartment where he lives with his Alzheimers-stricken mother.

Ma said that sometimes he would participate in the orgies, sometimes he would watch and sometimes he would just have a cigarette in the next room. The participants varied from young to old, white-collar workers to taxi drivers. Some were husbands and wives, but most didn't have regular sex partners. Ma stopped hosting the groups during the summer of 2009 after his sexual demands were refused by a few young girls and because, he says, he felt his health was deteriorating. 

Obscure law    
While prostitution is rampant in China, very few Chinese have ever heard of the crime of "group licentiousness," which was written into China's criminal law in 1997 as an amendment.

The law stipulates that a "leader" or anyone who participates in group sex with three or more people can face up to five years in jail. This makes a threesome technically a crime in China, although in reality, people are rarely prosecuted for it.

"I'm innocent," said Ma. "I've never heard of this crime before. It's all done at home privately and willingly. Nobody has forced anyone else to have sex."

National debate

The case is being debated by liberals and conservatives on television, Web portals and newspaper pages across China. 

Ma explained why he believes there is nothing wrong with the practice. "Marriage is like plain water: You have to drink it no matter what. But wife swapping is like drinking wine: You could choose to do it or not, it's all up to your own will."

But many have accused him of violating morality. When asked about that allegation, he became very emotional. "Has my private life changed the way of your life? Has it hurt anyone? We don't have sex as you imagine and they just demonize me."

Ma is getting some support on the Net. In an online survey of more than 54,000 readers by Sina.com, one of China's biggest Web portals, 59.1 percent agreed that "citizens have the right to do whatever they want to do to their bodies at their own will."

But in response to the question: "What do you think of Ma's charge on the crime 'group licentiousness?'" 29 percent of respondents said, "His behavior has violated traditional moral ethics and will easily lead people to sinful sex indulgence." Another 11.5 percent said, "It's hard to say."

On the bulletin board of another major Website, Sohu.com

, almost half of the survey participants said they supported Ma's right to do what he did.

"This is purely someone's own business, there's no need to hunt him for that, just like having an affair. Why do they even bother?  If they have time, why don't they take care of all those corrupt officials?" said one reader who went by the alias langyujun2008so.

Others expressed anger over Ma's behavior. "These animals, do they have any morals? In this society, moral ethics just don't work anymore!" said another reader.  

Li Yinhe, a renowned sexologist and sociologist in China, has openly supported Ma in her blog.

"The key point is how you define social ethics. If you define ethics within the boundary of marriage and sexual behavior is only confined with marriage, it is very outdated and stays in the Middle Ages," wrote Li.  "Since China entered modern society, citizens have their own choices. Some choose not to have marriage and some prefer sex outside marriages. It does not harm themselves or others … Therefore I think 'group licentiousness' is an old-fashioned and wrong law. Abolishing this law is not going to hurt social customs or moral ethics."

Ma and the 21 other defendants were tried in a closed court on Wednesday, but the verdict has not been announced yet.

BEIJING – After months of tense relations, China is showing new willingness to engage in talks with the United States, a diplomatic opening that may help the Obama administration achieve U.N. consensus on tightening sanctions on Iran.

"It was a remarkable change," said Shi Yinhong, an international affairs professor at China's Renmin University, "a stunning adjustment of China's policies."

Shi was referring to the fast-paced diplomacy that observers say may have changed the dynamic of the Iranian nuclear issue entirely, and brought new momentum to U.S.-China ties after months of bitter disputes.

China's new willingness to discuss another round of Iran sanctions has led experts to observe that Tehran could no longer depend on its trump card, its good ties with China to shield its controversial nuclear program.

Importance of China-U.S. relations

Just as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was arriving in Beijing on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman was inside the Chinese Foreign Ministry to hear the surprise news. Despite the diplomatic clashes over Taiwan, Tibet, Google, currency manipulation and other disputes, President Hu Jintao will attend the nuclear security summit President Barack Obama is hosting in Washington later this month to discuss the possibility of a fresh round of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

Opposing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is a core part of Obama's agenda, and if China, a major nuclear power, had been absent from the negotiating table, it would have been an embarrassing setback. So the fact that China agreed to attend the meeting was hailed as a sign of progress and an easing of tensions between the two big powers.

The White House said Friday the United States was consulting with China on ratcheting up pressure on Iran and imposing further scansions over its nuclear program. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Washington was pleased with the progress made so far.

Despite the awkward timing of Jalili's arrival in Beijing, it was hard to sense any panic or frustration in the Iranian's voice about the latest developments during a press conference he had with local media on Friday. Talk of sanctions and even a question from one reporter asking whether the "Chinese had betrayed Iran?" were answered with a composure and conciliation toward his Chinese hosts.

Jalili dismissed suggestions that China was jumping on board to support new U.N. sanctions aimed at stemming Iran's nuclear program. "In our talks with China it was agreed that tools such as sanctions have lost their effectiveness," Jalili said during the news conference.

For its part, Beijing remained non-committal on the sanctions issue. Rather, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday that all parties should "step up diplomatic efforts, and show flexibility, to create the conditions to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation."

But according to Shi, the Renmin professor, the latest development clearly shows how China is prioritizing its ties with Washington – above Iran. China's changing stance on Tehran is "part of efforts to improve relations with the United States," Shi said.

The geo-politics of oil

In the last decade, China's energy and strategic interests in Iran have become increasingly intertwined, with Iran supplying China with 11 percent of its oil needs. In recent years, Tehran has signed deals with Chinese companies to open and exploit Iran's vast crude oil and gas reserves, the second biggest in the world, with some estimating that the Chinese have committed $120 billion to Iran's energy sector.

Ironically, even as Iran boosts crude exports to China, it finds itself increasingly reliant on China for gasoline. Embargos and decrepit refineries have forced Iran to import from China nearly a third of its petrol supply. China has also become Iran's largest trading partner.

For years Tehran has counted on China's veto power in the U.N. Security Council and its international diplomatic clout to shield it against severe international sanctions. Three previous rounds of sanctions were watered down to prevent a Chinese veto.

But according to Cliff Kupchan, a top Iran analyst with the political risk consultants Eurasia Group, times are changing. "Iran's main leverage has been oil, but global supply is now robust and Saudi spare capacity could replace Iranian supplies to China," Kupchan said.

"Iran has no longer an oil trump card, as it did when markets were tight," he added.

Negotiations vs. sanctions

China's changing stance however "does not mean that it has given up on diplomacy and negotiations," said Dr.Victor Gao, director of the China National Association of International Studies

"China is firmly opposed to any nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East, but there has been no firm indication, despite some reports from other quarters, that China believes that diplomacy and negotiations have been fully exhausted," Gao said. "We are not at that stage yet, China will keep pushing for negotiations and diplomacy for this unfolding situation, including at the Washington summit," he added.

Still Kupchan estimates that, "China will probably agree to targeted sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, but not harsher trade-related measures."

"Iran will likely react to a new sanctions resolution provocatively, this regime is very risk-acceptant," Kupchan added, citing possible moves such as claiming bomb-grade low-enriched uranium or building faster centrifuges.

"I doubt there will be more than one, perhaps two, future U.N. sanctions resolutions against Iran," he said, projecting that "the focus will then shift to 'coalition of the willing' U.S.-led sanctions and direct U.S. sanctions on Iran."

BEIJING – Just how far behind I am in the race to get into the Chinese property market was made starkly clear to me recently. My cleaning lady – who earns about $90 a month for each of the handful of households she cleans (considered a high rate for Beijing) – recently beamed proudly to me about becoming a homeowner. 

Granted, it was a small apartment in a somewhat remote area way out by the Sixth Ring Road, the outermost highway circling the Chinese capital, but there was no getting away from the fact she owned her own home while I'm still doling out monthly rent that some people here liken to "money down the drain." 

VIDEO: Is China the next housing bubble?

Like their American counterparts during the 20th century, millions of China's middle class have been snapping up homes over the past two decades. Since the late 1990s, China's central government has had in place economic policies that have enabled more than nine out of ten middle class urban families to purchase their own homes.

It's been dubbed "the largest one-time transfer of wealth in the history of the world," by Andy Rothman, the China macro-strategist at CLSA, an independent investment group.

The demand has led to booming prices. In February, the average cost for residential property across China's cities was 10.7 percent higher than it was in the same month last year.

But the price rises are meteoric when one isolates cities like Beijing or Shanghai, where the rate of increases for average housing units is anywhere between 50 and 100 percent a year, and the supply of newly built units is spilling over into second-tier suburbs with little or no public transport options.

This kind of growth is happening in spite of what consumers in the U.S. or the U.K., after years of easy credit, might think of as stringent borrowing rules. For one, first-time homeowners in China typically pay 30 to 40 percent cash as a down payment, although often buyers will pony up all-cash payments for their property.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

The Chinese character for "demolish" looms above a soon-to-be construction site for new housing units.

'Time to buy'

Being a home owner has become one of the main priorities in life for China's young and upwardly mobile. 

"Owning an apartment is very important to us," said Gao, a 32-year-old Beijing resident shopping for a home with his fiancée (he would only give his family name). "Life is the most important thing to us, then work, then a house."

The desire for property has been fueled, in part, by the government's reaction to the recession. As the global slump made its way from west to east during the end of 2008, the Chinese government decided that bolstering domestic consumption would help its economy ride out the downturn. That meant easier credit for the average consumer, thus encouraging them to buy property.

Vicky Tang, an English-language teacher from Hebei had stood on the property sidelines for years, said that the interest rates were so low it seemed silly not to dip her toes into the property market. "It was time to buy," she said.

A bubble about to burst?
Lately, however, observers worry that the easy credit may have been too much of a good thing, with economists wondering if China's property bubble has become too frothy.

"At least seven cities saw land prices triple in 2009," wrote Stephen Green, head of the Greater China research division at Standard Chartered Bank. "This is clearly bubble territory for the land markets in many cities."

Others have thrown out the specter of Dubai. A comment that China is "Dubai times 1,000 or worse," by Jim Chanos, a hedge fund manager, has become a widely quoted refrain. 

Some Chinese economists agree. "The statistics suggest that the real estate bubble in China is even bigger than that in Dubai," said Liu Yuhui from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 

Liu, though, is quick to note a key difference between the two countries: "This is not caused by speculators, but by the [Chinese] government finance and tax system," which he believes can be easily addressed and enable officials to manage a "soft landing."

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Recyclers sort through demolition debris at a site slated for a new housing development.Â

Low cost housing coming
In fact, Beijing has already taken several steps to address the problem. Control measures over taxes, credit, land supply and housing construction have been introduced steadily since late last year, and recent signs suggest these measures are proving to be effective, with residential prices beginning to cool earlier this year.

In addition, officials are making an effort to make housing affordable and available to young Chinese, especially in the face of burgeoning shanty towns and other substandard housing.

Late last year, reports described the desperate situation in a place dubbed "Ant City" on the outer edges of Beijing, where tens of thousands of university graduates and other employable and aspiring white collar workers were housed in dorm-like rooms. 

For instance, Jia Yongle, a 23-year-old university graduate with a degree in business management, has been struggling to find a job while living in a 200 square foot apartment with three others (each paying roughly 40 dollars a month in rent).

The authorities say they are investing $59 billion in the construction of subsidized housing across the nation as well as the reconstruction of shanty towns, projects to resettle nomads and the renovation of housing in rural areas.

In Beijing, for example, the mayor has promised that the construction of subsidized housing will make up at least 50 percent of total new building projects in the city.

HONG KONG –If you aren't a fan of rugby yet, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has a message for you: It's coming, and in a format which might finally engage an elusive American audience.

Bobby Yip / Reuters

New Zealand's Tim Mikkelson falls to the ground after failing to tackle Samoa's Mikaele Pesamino on his way to score during the final of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament on Sunday. Samoa beat New Zealand to win the championship.Â

In the six months since rugby "sevens" – a variation of rugby where the standard 15 players on a team is slashed down to 7 – was voted into the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rogge has been making the rounds selling the merits of the game to audiences all over the world.

It should come as no surprise then that Rogge was in Hong Kong last weekend to attend the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, Asia's oldest sevens tournament and what many rugby players have long considered the unofficial Olympic games for rugby sevens.

Though the decision to include rugby in the Summer Games has been cheered by fans and players alike in Hong Kong, many have been quick to condemn the IOC's vision of an Olympic Sevens tournament that would be less inclusive than the extremely popular Hong Kong template. 

Modest beginnings

Sevens rugby differs greatly from traditional 15 player rugby, with shorter games and fewer players on the field – two teams of seven players compete for two periods of seven minutes each – so the matches tend to be fast paced and high scoring.

Hong Kong's Sevens has been extremely influential in helping to develop world class Asian rugby.

The first Hong Kong Sevens Tournament in 1976 started modestly with teams from Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Japan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Fiji. 

While it started on a small scale, the tournament had the advantage of Cathay Pacific Airways as a sponsor and Hong Kong's cosmopolitan location, which helped tournament organizers lure new teams and elevate the competition level.

It's now grown to include 24 teams – including traditional rugby powerhouses like England and South Africa.

While the traditional version of rugby with 15 favors bulky players, the qualities required in sevens – agility, ball skills and fitness – have allowed many Asian countries that lack a lot of experience with contact sports to adapt to the sport.

With increased exposure to top quality competition and training, Asian teams like Japan, Korea and Hong Kong have developed quickly to be able to compete with some of the more traditional rugby powerhouses.

It was that interplay between improved competition and tournament exposure that Hong Kong organizers had hoped for and what helped set the stage for rugby to leapfrog into the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

With more opportunities to develop and compete against top teams, as well as the lower costs of maintaining a sevens team compared to sports like baseball, it is easy to see how Asian countries like China, Fiji and Tonga, as well as African countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe, saw rugby as one of their best chances to medal in an Olympic sport and voted accordingly.

Humble beginnings ignored?

While the inclusiveness of rugby sevens is part of what allowed it to catapult into the Olympic limelight, the IOC's vision of what Olympic rugby competition might look like has generated some angry backlash from many of its original supporters.

Rogge's announcement in Hong Kong on Monday that the 2016 Games will only feature 12 teams, rather than the standard 16 or 24, has irked supporters who say smaller countries will be pushed out in favor of the traditional powerhouses.

U.S. Coach Al Caravelli is one of those calling for an expanded tournament. While the U.S. team had strongest showing ever at the Hong Kong Sevens over this past weekend, and are likely to make it into the Olympics, Caravelli stressed the importance of a diverse Olympic Sevens tournament.

"Hopefully [the IOC] will see that this will be the greatest team sport to ever play in the Olympics with the fan base it can bring, and also the minnow or smaller nations such as Fiji, Samoa or even Kenya can take part," said Caravelli. "Giving these small countries a chance to medal is huge for them on the world stage. If we truly believe we want to make this sport really global, definitely they should have at least 16 teams."

Caravelli is onto something: Samoa actually won the Hong Kong Sevens tournament on Sunday.

But perhaps he was thinking closer to home. He and other Americans know that the last time rugby was an Olympic sport at the 1924 Paris Games, there was a shocking "minnow" of a winner: the United States.

BEIJING – Flowers. Candles. Cards. Songs. No – it wasn't Valentine's Day. Just the day after Google began redirecting its mainland China users to an uncensored server based in Hong Kong.

Dozens of Chinese Netizens gathered in front of Google's headquarters in northwestern Beijing Tuesday to bid farewell to the Internet giant by presenting tokens of their affection. One of the cards placed on top of the company's logo outside its gate said, "In Google We Trust." Some people held posters saying "I love Google."

But the vigil did not go as smoothly as the Google lovers hoped. They were constantly harassed by both plainclothed and uniformed police who told them to leave and wouldn't allow them to light their candles. A bit of bickering broke out between police and candle holders, but nothing got violent.

AFP - Getty Images

A group of Chinese students hold a candlelight vigil outside the Google headquarters in Beijing on Tuesday, holding placards saying, "We Love Google" after Google stopped censoring search engine results in China the day before.Â

On Wednesday, a similar farewell party was held in Guangzhou, in southern China, just a few hours' drive from Hong Kong. A group of IT engineers, journalists and some other professionals planned to meet at a well-known local bar to talk about Google's pullout.

However, their meeting spot had to be changed after the bar owner was summoned by police and told he wasn't allowed to operate that night. After their second bar was questioned by police, the group moved to a warehouse to discuss what Google's pullout meant to Chinese Internet users.

Wen Yunchao, an outspoken Guangzhou-based blogger better known as "Beifeng," was part of the warehouse discussion and said they wanted to commemorate event. "It's a great loss to Google users. It's going to be very inconvenient for us to use Google now. But I admire and praise Google's action because they value morals more than profits."

Tens of thousands of Google lovers expressed their anger and concern on Twitter, a social networking site they are able to use with the help of proxy servers and without Big Brother's censorship. Since Google's initial announcement in January, a group of Chinese Netizens started discussing Google's future on Twitter under a tag "Googlecn."

Many posted outraged messages about the government's attempt to control the Internet. One user said the, "Chinese government has never abided by the Chinese Constitution, therefore they should pull out of China."

Another one teased in a train conductor's tone: "Dear passengers of Train Harmonious, one of the passengers called Google has been kicked off the train because he didn't obey the rules. Now please pull down the curtain and you are not allowed to watch the scenery outside. Our next stop: Pyongyang." (This post may seem long, but written in Chinese characters, it fits the Twitter character limitations.) 

VIDEO: China seethes as Google leaves

Chinese backlash begins

On the other hand, the Chinese-run media has been relentlessly attacking Google since it announced the pullout. China has accused Google of being responsible for spreading pornographic content and breaking its own written promises when it first entered the country in 2006.

The State Council's Information Office swiftly responded to the announced pullout by saying, "This is totally wrong. We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conduct."

Since the change, many of the state-run TV stations have invited experts on their shows to say that government censorship of information is a common practice everywhere else in the world. Chinese Web sites that feature discussion boards and comments have been ordered to delete pro-Google remarks and only the Xinhua News Agency (the Chinese government's official mouthpiece) version of reporting on Google's pullout can be published.

China's Central TV (CCTV), the biggest state-run broadcaster in mainland China, even invited the founder of China's Great Firewall, Fang Binxing, to appear on a discussion program. Fang alleged that Google has always been using a self-censoring system, which he said operates in more than 180 countries to filter harmful information.

And in sharp contrast to Twitter users' attachment and concern for Google, major Chinese Web sites have been inundated by angry comments about the search engine's departure from the mainland. "If you don't want to obey China's laws, fine, get the hell out!" has been a common refrain.

Some sneeringly said that Google's pullout was a result of a commercial failure, instead of its unwillingness to cooperate with the government. "Google just can't operate in China anymore and I hope they will fail again in Hong Kong!" wrote one poster.

Many others expressed their indifference, saying they only used Baidu.com, Google's largest local competitor in mainland China. http://www.baidu.com/

"This bombardment on Google shows how much the Chinese government cares about Google's pullout. It's a heavy slap on their face otherwise they wouldn't have acted so fiercely," said Beifeng. "And this nationalist fighting back among the public will not last long, just as their reaction to the French (over their protest against control of Tibet)."

Although Google has ceased to self-censor content to its Hong Kong site, users from mainland China cannot access some information.

Users on the mainland who open www.google.com are automatically redirected to www.google.com.hk, instead of www.google.com.cn.

But keyword searches censored by the Chinese government such as "Tibet independence," or "June 4," the term used for the Tiananmen Square protests in China, return messages that say "content cannot be displayed" and connections between the computer and Google are cut off for a few minutes.

Twitter users have actively been discussing the latest developments and have noticed that even the family names of Chinese leaders like "Hu," "Wen," and "Xi" are being censored.

Google's local partners in China also have begun gradually terminating their cooperation with the search company. Tom Online, which runs the popular Web portal Tom.com, has switched to Baidu.com for Internet searches from its site saying its agreement with Google has expired. China Unicom, China's second largest mobile wireless provider, announced it's going to remove Google search function from the handsets it developed in cooperation with Google. And Tianya.com, China's biggest bulletin board service, also said it's going to discontinue its cooperation with Google.

As of Friday, none of Google's employees in Beijing had received notices of relocation or layoffs, but they likely are bracing for the worst.

Related story: Navigating China's web of censors

URUMQI, China – For quite some time, I had been looking forward to travelling back to Xinjiang province, one of my favorite destinations in China, for a reporting trip.

But I also had a sense of trepidation. 

The predominantly Muslim province has been an Internet-free zone since riots broke out last July between the ethnic Han Chinese and the minority Uighurs. Provincial authorities say 197 people died in clashes on the streets of Urumqi, the provincial capital, in one of China's worst incidents of ethnic strife in recent memory.    

So while everyone's debating what a China without Google might look like if the Internet giant quits operations in the country, the 20 million-odd residents of Xinjiang province have had to contend without any Internet access for the past eight months.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

A large banner welcomes visitors to "Urumqi State High-tech zone." Maybe its not so "high-tech" after all.

And I wondered what it would be like to be off-line for more than just a couple of hours.

Cut off

"Ah sorry, madam, there is no Internet," the woman at our hotel confirmed by phone when I called ahead of our arrival.

For once my Blackberry stayed inside my pocket. The upper right corner stared back tantalizingly: "edge."  Which in Blackberry connectivity-speak meant I could make phone calls, but that I had no data service.

In fact, some Internet is available to the general public. Since late December, there has been a rollout so gradual that some folks on Twitter dubbed it the "Chinese water torture: Xinjiang Internet opens up – very, very, very s l o w l y."

The first Web sites to be restored were two Chinese state-media outlets, Xinhua and the People's Daily. They were followed by watered-down versions of two leading Chinese Web portals, Sina and Sohu. Last month, 27 more Web sites were restored.

Internet cafes are still largely closed, but what really puzzled me was how any business was getting done. Fax? Telex? 

An ethnic Chinese resident in Urumqi explained that his company – a sizeable Chinese venture with partners in Europe and the United States – had Internet and normal email services. All companies had to do, he said, was apply to authorities for the service. This did not automatically grant every employee in the company Internet access; they had to register with their managers in order to be able to use it. Once they did, however, they had the same Internet services available to the rest of the country.

Nevertheless, there seemed to be no registration option for travelers. At an international hotel chain, a letter from hotel management greeted us on arrival: "Please be kindly advised that all Internet service in Xinjiang is restricted to local Internet sites only, due to the current situation in Xinjiang." 

During the National People's Congress in Beijing earlier this month, provincial officials from Urumqi announced that full Internet service would be restored shortly. 

But those assurances were qualified. One Xinjiang functionary was quoted in the China Daily as saying, "Authorities should focus on managing the Internet more effectively when the service is fully resumed, so it won't be used by criminals as a tool of communication."

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Is it the Uyghur population the authorities want to control or the Chinese?

Keeping a tight lid on who?

The Internet restrictions have been the central feature of an overall clampdown on communications in Xinjiang since July. 

International calls and text message services to the region were only restored in January. But international calling cards have a 30-minute limit, and there's a daily cap on how many texts one can send per day (answer: 20 – after being cut off on our Blackberries, we suddenly found ourselves keeping close count). 

"Everything we keep online – our email addresses, our phone numbers, you lose that, you can't access it," Josh Summers, an American teacher, told me. 

Summers, who lived in Xinjiang for four years and has just returned to the United States for an extended break, kept an informative blog about his experience on "Xinjiang, Far West China."    

"For the people who are minorities, who are most likely to have families outside China – in Turkey or Kazakhstan, for example – not having international phone lines meant that you couldn't contact your families."

But it's questionable whether the targets of Internet control are just Xinjiang's main ethnic minority, the Uighurs. Chinese state-media reports have blamed last summer's violence on Uighur separatist groups, but there's another demographic that could be worrying the authorities.

"Some of it was the Uighurs," said a U.S. official, who wished to remain anonymous. "But I think the real reason was that they wanted to stop the Han Chinese from organizing."

Last September, an estimated 10,000 ethnic Chinese marched on the streets of Urumqi to protest against the local government's handling of the July incidents. Witnesses were quoted as saying they felt let down by authorities, who had failed to protect them. Some placards went so far as to call for the ouster of Wang Lequan, the powerful Communist Party chief who has run Xinjiang for more than 15 years – longer than any other provincial party secretary.

But from the surface today it was hard to tell any of this.

Underlying tensions

The Chinese we met in Urumqi, for the most part, insisted that everything was back to normal. (Unlike their counterparts elsewhere in China, who still express alarm about the region. Whenever we mentioned our upcoming trip to local Chinese, their reaction was uniform, "Oh, but it's still so dangerous there. Aren't you worried?")

On the surface, in Urumqi, the "back to normal" claims seem to be well-founded and there was nothing to suggest anything untoward. No extra police, no military – apart from one little shack on a main thoroughfare.

But some indications do suggest that all is not well – for example, the extra layer of security taken on by individual businesses. 

Our hotel had a new machine to screen bags. An office we went to film on the outskirts of the capital had a stack of electric cattle prods lying on a windowsill, and they kept the front door chained shut. I saw none of this kind of concern at the height of pre-Summer Olympic security preparations in Xinjiang in 2008.

"There's no actual sense that something is unsafe," said Summers. "But if you talk to a Uighur person or a Han person, they'll say they're afraid to go down to that restaurant or that area because it's Uighur or Han."