BEIJING -- Christopher Cox Nixon began retracing the steps of his grandfather's historic 1972 visit to China by walking across Tiananmen Square with an entourage that included several former Nixon aides.

"The stark contrast between then and now," marveled Jack Brennan, who had accompanied President Richard Nixon to China as his Marine Corp aide. "The colors, and nobody smiled back then."

As if on cue, a young Chinese woman in a bright dress, big white-rimmed sunglasses and a smile that seemed as broad as the Tiananmen Gate, bounded forward requesting a photograph. Although not with Brennan, but with the young Nixon's glamorous wife, Andrea Catsimatidis, clad in a striking red dress.

Catsimatidis, daughter of supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis -- a candidate for mayor of New York -- duly obliged, as she would several more times as the group strolled on through the Forbidden City.

It is likely that none of the Chinese fans had a clue who she was -- and they may never have heard of either of the Nixons. But it seemed a cool thing to do, uploading the photo from a smartphone to one of the many social networking sites patronized by young Chinese.

Yes, this country has changed.

Andy Wong / AP

In this combo photo, U.S. President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat Nixon have light moments at a huge stone elephant, left, on Feb. 24, 1972; while at right, Nixon's grandson Christopher Cox and his wife Andrea Catsimatidisat visit the same spot at the Ming Tomb, north of Beijing, on  May 4, 2013.

President Nixon called his historic 1972 visit "the week that changed the world," ending 25 years of a diplomatic freeze between the two countries. The young Nixon’s visit marked the centenary of his grandfather's birth.

"What an incredible change from 40 years ago," said the young Nixon, a 34-year-old investment banker with political ambitions of his own. "Just look at the personal freedoms, not political freedoms, but personal freedoms -- how people dress, how people interact with each other."

The 1972 trip is credited with opening China to the world. It was also an important Cold War play, driving a deeper wedge between China and the Soviet Union. Nixon was fiercely anti-communist, and the term "Nixon going to China" became a catchphrase for an unexpected action by a politician.

"We should never keep a billion of the world's most able and hard-working people in isolation," said his grandson. "I think that he [President Nixon] would have expected to see the Chinese people so prosperous and industrious."

The anniversary trip was designed to stress the positives of both the Nixon administration and the Chinese Communist Party, which gave the group red-carpet treatment as they traveled last week to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

One highlight was a banquet at the Great Hall of the People, hosted by State Councilor Yang Jiechi, China's top foreign policy official, and designed to mirror a banquet thrown for President Nixon.

A big screen at the front of the room described the 1972 summit as the "most important event in the history of international diplomacy in the 20^th century."

Andy Wong / AP

Christopher Cox, grandson of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, second from right, and his wife Andrea Catsimatidis, third from right, pose with Chinese tourists as they tour the Great Wall of China at Badaling, north of Beijing, on May 4. A delegation led by Cox is here to commemorate Nixon's centennial by retracing his 1972 historical visit to China.

Among the Chinese dignitaries was Tang Wensheng, who had been interpreter for Chairman Mao Zedong back then. Mao had suffered a stroke a few days before Nixon arrived, and she said the Chinese side was worried about whether Mao would be well enough. But the ailing Mao was able to meet Nixon.

Robert McFarlane, former national security adviser to President Nixon, said the summit set the scene for extensive sharing of privileged information.

"We shared the most sensitive intelligence about the Soviet Union with China, intelligence we didn't even share with our allies," he said.

He said this was designed as a mark of sincerity, but it also served Washington's purpose of further poisoning relations between the two communist giants.

Back then, of course, relations between China and the U.S. were fairly simple -- there weren't any.

Today China is a much more open, yet complicated, place. Relations can be tense and difficult. The two are economic and political rivals, and U.S. officials are much more regular visitors as they grapple with a host of issues from cyberspying to North Korea. 

"The problems haven't become any easier," McFarlane said. "Issues like cybersecurity, regional territorial disagreements between China and her neighbors and certainly terrorism -- all of these look daunting."

As the toasts got underway, there was much talk at the banquet of reviving the spirit of 1972.

"It’s important for the two countries to talk to each other frankly," McFarlane said.

Related links: 

Chairman Mao's granddaugher makes China's rich list 

China labels US the 'real hacking empire' after Pentagon report 

'Charlie Two Shoes': A story of wartime loyalty and friendship

Yonhap News Agency via EPA

South Korean President Park Geun-hye waves at Seoul Airport before departing for the United States on May 5.

SEOUL, South Korea – From her tough talk on North Korea to her penchant for large brooches on her power suits, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye has done plenty to become known as South Korea’s “Iron Lady.”

As South Korea’s first female president – inaugurated just in February – Park expressed admiration for Britain’s Margaret Thatcher during her successful run for president. And after Thatcher's recent death, Park praised how she “revived the British economy and led Britain to an era of hope in the 1980s.”

While her critics see her as cold and aloof – the ice queen – others praise the far tougher line she has taken with Pyongyang than her predecessors.

 “I will not tolerate any action that threatens the lives of our people and the security of our nation,” she warned the North during her inauguration.

She has vowed to hit back hard at any provocations, recently telling South Korean Army officers: “Any country that ignores its starving citizens to focus solely on nuclear weapons and military power will inevitably collapse.” 

Kim Jae-Hwan / AFP – Getty Images

South Korea's new president Park Geun-Hye arrives at the official dinner at the presidential Blue House in Seoul after her inauguration on Feb. 25, 2013.

 The 61-year-old president will meet President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday and addresses Congress Wednesday, but the message she’ll bring to Washington is likely to be more nuanced than her domestic rhetoric.

“Whether she will be tougher or softer on North Korea will depend on North Korea,” said former South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, who remains close to the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential house. “She will try and engage North Korea if North Korea is willing and responsive.”

And reports on Monday that the North has stood down two medium range missiles that had been primed for testing have set an intriguing tone for the summit. 

South Korean political family
She's certainly got the pedigree for a harder line. Park is the daughter of South Korea’s former military strongman Park Chung-hee. He was president for 18 years after seizing power in 1961. 

When she was just 22 her mother was shot dead by a North Korean assassin’s bullet aimed at her father, and for five years she assumed the duties of first lady – until her father also was assassinated, by his own spy chief, in 1979.

Saenuri Party via Reuters

South Korea's Park Geun-hye, center, poses with her father and then-President Park Chung-hee and her mother Yuk Young-soo along with her younger brother and sister in Seoul.

In 2006 Park Geun-hye herself was attacked, a convicted criminal slashing her face while she was meeting voters. She needed 60 stitches during surgery.

Given her avowed admiration for Thatcher, she has often been compared to the former British leader. 

“They are both women of principle, courage and experience as well as strong leadership,” said former Prime Minister Han.

Her father still generates strong and polarized emotions in Korea, and last year she issued a public apology for human rights abuses committed under his rule, though she’s also described the 1961 coup as necessary.

The election of Park, who has never married and has no children, has raised hopes among women in a country that was recently ranked 108^th out of 135 countries in terms of gender equality.

“Gender is not a barrier to high office in Korea anymore,” said Han. He pointed out that Park has sacrificed her personal life for the good of the nation. “She’s a very kind, warm-hearted lady but on making important decisions she’s very firm.”

Park was first elected to South Korea’s National Assembly in 1998, and when you take that together with her family experience in the Blue House, “she’s one of the most experienced presidents we could have,” Han says. 

‘Venomous swish of the skirt’
Her challenges are daunting, with North Korean relations at rock-bottom after weeks of blood-curdling rhetoric from Pyongyang – especially some targeted right at Park.

“The frenzy kicked up by the South Korean warmongers,” thundered the North’s Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, “is in no way irrelevant with the venomous swish of skirt made by the one who again occupies the Blue House.”

CBS Nocutnews via AP

Park Geun-Hye, chairwoman of the Grand National Party, is attacked by an assailant with a box cutter while campaigning ahead of local elections in Seoul on May 20, 2006. Park suffered a 10-centimeter (4-inch) cut on her face.

All links were severed during the recent tensions, including at the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park. And on Friday the last seven South Korean workers remaining returned from Kaesong industrial park after the South sent in two vehicles loaded with $13 million in cash – described as “unpaid wages.”

To many familiar with the ways of the North, that looked like good old tried-and-tested extortion, and was accompanied by warnings from Pyongyang that Seoul should end its “hostile acts and military provocations” if the zone is to re-open.

Those “hostile acts” appear to be a reference to a joint South Korea-U.S. anti-submarine drill that began Monday in the Yellow Sea and lasts until Friday.

For now, the South is describing the shutdown of the industrial zone as a “suspension” and has not cut the power supply, which originates in the South.

“It’s a difficult time,” said Han, “but she’s well prepared.”

Related:

• North Korea removes missiles from launch site
• North Korea rejects talks with South's 'puppet regime'
• South Koreans evacuate Kaesong joint industrial complex with all they can carry

BEIJING – Next weekend, an 80-year-old Chinese American called Charlie Tsui will give the commencement address at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri.

The events which shaped Tsui's life took place well before any of the 270 students receiving their bachelor degrees were born, though his story of loyalty and friendship easily bridges the generational divide.

Tsui was born in a village just outside the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, which is where he first met U.S. Marines, stationed there at the end of the World War II. He lived in a hut just beyond the barbed wire of the Marine compound. It was a time of immense turmoil in China, which was gripped by a civil war that would eventually lead to the Communists taking over in 1949.

Tsui would bring the Marines boiled eggs and warm peanuts from his village.

The Marines adopted him, gave Tsui food and clothes, taught him English and paid for him to go to the American school in the city. They also gave him a nickname: “Charlie Two Shoes,” since his original Chinese name, Tsui Chi Hsii, was tough to pronounce.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui, nicknamed "Charlie Two Shoes" as a child by the U.S. Marines who became like brothers to him in Qingdao, China after World War II.

"We were like brothers in the Marine Corps," he recalls. "We love each other, just like brother and sister."

But the Marines were not able to take Tsui with them when they left shortly before the Communists took control.

"Leaving him over there when I left in 1947, it was like leaving a wounded Marine behind," said Don Sexton, who was squad leader back then.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui as a child in Qingdao, China after World War II.

For years, the Marines heard nothing of Tsui, who was jailed and then kept under house arrest for seven years for refusing to denounce his Marine buddies.

In 1983, Tsui did manage to get a letter out, and NBC News was able to track him down. The timing was good, as China was opening up, and the Marines campaigned successfully to get him a visa for the US, his family joining him two years later. He was soon running a successful restaurant business in Chapel Hill, N.C., which of course was the scene over the years of many a Marine reunion.

But having gotten to the U.S., seemingly in the face of massive odds, he then faced a 17-year-battle with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He came close to deportation before gaining legal residency and ultimately citizenship under a 1992 law prompted by the Tiananmen Square massacre.

"He was one special person. Now he's like family," said Carl Frost, one of those Marines.

In 2002, Tsui was made an "honorary Marine" in an official ceremony at Camp Lejeune. 

Frost and Sexton were among the members of Tsui's Marine family who recently returned to Qingdao with Tsui for the first time since he left all those years ago. Also on the trip were students from the College of the Ozarks, which sponsored the visit. The college has a program that pairs students with American veterans, taking them back to their battlefields or military stations.

Today's Qingdao is a very different place, with modern glistening buildings and brash prosperity. NBC News also joined the trip as an at times bewildered Charlie Two Shoes sought out the landmarks of his childhood.

NBC News

Charlie Tsui and a group of his old Marine buddies return to Qingdao, China for the first time in 30 years.

"That was the cave where the Japanese stored their weapons," he said, pointing at the craggy rocks just beyond what is now a sports field, but had been a military parade ground, during the Japanese occupation of the city.

The old Marines barracks has long since been reclaimed by the city's university. "That's where I slept, up the end there," he said, pointing down a long corridor.

The old American School is now an elite kindergarten. Remarkably, Tsui's old family home still stands, though much expanded by the migration workers now living there. His village, Chukechuang, has become part of the city's sprawling suburbs. This is where he met an elder brother he'd thought was dead.

 "I was worried. He's alright. He's alright," he said, as the two stood gripping each other's hands.

When the Americans left, Tsui had moved into an orphanage run by nuns, which is where he developed a strong Christian faith, which he says kept him going through those hard times.

St. Michael's Cathedral, where he received his first communion, still stands - a city landmark. Tsui would walk 10 miles, there and back, to worship on Sundays until the Communists shut it down.

Tsui's return visit was during a big Chinese holiday. The beach and promenade at Qingdao was packed. For a moment Tsui was lost in thought, before recalling where the last of the American ships were loaded before leaving. Back then he thought he'd never see his Marine buddies again. But he never gave up hope.

Related links:

More NBC News reporting on China in Behind the Wall

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 4:40 PM EDT

Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

A new strain of bird flu identified in China "is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Assistant Director-General for Health Security, tells journalists at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

BEIJING – A new type of bird flu that has killed 22 people in China since March is one of the most deadly strains of influenza known, international health experts said on Wednesday. 

"This is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Assistant Director-General for Health Security. "We are at the beginning of our understanding of this virus."

The H7N9 strain appears to spread more easily to humans than SARS, a different virus that started killing people in Asia a decade ago, experts said. Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed around 800 people globally in 2003 before it was stopped.

"This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans," added Fukuda, who was speaking in Beijing alongside leading flu experts from around the world.  

The delegation from United States, Europe, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as China, have just concluded a week-long investigation that took them to affected areas in Shanghai and Beijing.

Little is known
The group of experts made an impressive display of international cooperation, but at the same time admitted just how little is known about the virus that has infected 108 people since March.

"We are at the very early stages of this investigation," said Dr. Nancy Cox, who heads Influenza Division at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "There's a lot to be learned.”

Most of the cases so far have been found in eastern China, around the Yangtze River delta, but in recent days there have been cases in central and northern China, including the capital. Most have been what Fukuda called "sporadic cases."  

He said a few family clusters have been found, which could be the result of exposure to the same source of virus, or limited person-to-person transmission.

But he said: "'Evidence so far is not sufficient to conclude there is person-to-person transmission. Moreover, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been found.”

The experts concluded that live poultry markets were the most likely source of infection.

The experts praised the swift action of Chinese authorities in closing live poultry markets, and said it was "encouraging" that there have been no new cases in Shanghai since its markets were shuttered.

And they called for continued international cooperation against a virus that doesn't recognize borders. 

"The risks of an outbreak situation are shared in a globalized world, where we are all interconnected," said Fukuda.

Legacy of distrust
All of those who spoke today went out of their way to praise the response and of the Chinese authorities and their openness and transparency. There is enormous sensitivity to any suggestion that their presence in China implies any criticism of local efforts.

China still lives in the shadow of the SARS pandemic, which began here a decade ago and killed hundreds worldwide, including in the U.S. It was made worse by an initial cover-up by the Chinese authorities.

"The response reflects earlier and strong investments in health and preparedness made by China," said Fukuda.

SARS also left a legacy of distrust, which was on display earlier in the week in Shanghai, when a press conference by the local government and WHO was gatecrashed by the daughter of a couple infected with H7N9. The 26-year-old demanded information about her quarantined father; her mother had died.

"The hospitals and medical staff appear friendly to members of the media like you but have responded in a lukewarm manner to inquiries from family members like me," she told the South China Morning Post. She was taken away by officials.

The experts said that in the absence of so much basic information about the extent of the public health risk it was critical to maintain a high level of awareness. They also noted that the weather is warming up in China, which might provide a bit of a respite and buy them some important time, since H7N9 -- in common with other influenza -- spreads less easily in the spring and summer.

Related:

• A new openness as new bird flu virus spreads in China
• Six more diagnosed with new bird flu in China
• Scientists ready to re-start bird flu experiments

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:19 AM EDT

As North Korea continues its bellicose rhetoric, the U.S., as well as China and the rest of Asia are on high alert.

A team of NBC News correspondents have been deployed to cover the potential impact of a missile launch: Richard Engel is in Seoul, South Korea;  Ian Williams is in Beijing, China; and Ayman Mohyeldin is in Tokyo, Japan.

On Friday, they all participated in a Google+ Hangout and discussed the attitudes in their respective countries towards North Korea's rhetoric, the real potential of a missile launch and much more.

Ian Williams weighed in from Beijing saying that the North Korea story has recently generated an “explosion of interest” in the official Chinese state media over the last few days. But what he finds even more significant is the attention the story is getting on social media in China.

Left to right: Ayman Mohyeldin, Richard Engel, Ian Williams.

“Social media, the Internet, is the closest barometer we have got of public opinion here in China. And they are absolutely laying into North Korea. The criticism is  – not of the U.S. – but of North Korea. There are caricatures, there are cartoons, they’ve dubbed the leader Kim Jong Un as ‘Fatty the Third’ or ‘Little Fatty,” Williams reported. Adding “It’s serious – they are questioning precisely what he’s going to stick on top of one of his missiles, questioning the military capability. But also criticizing their own leadership for their association with what they see as a Neanderthal regime whose methods are very chilling.”

Click on the link above to replay the informative chat from three of NBC’s most experienced foreign correspondents.

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 7:10 PM EDT

News Analysis

BEIJING -- There was confusion at the China-North Korea border Thursday after Chinese tour operators halted trips into the North.

Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

Two men wait Thursday for dispatch at a customs port in the Chinese border city of Dandong. The largest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

It wasn't clear whether the instruction to do so came from the Chinese authorities, the North Koreans, or was made by the nervous operators themselves.

But it mirrored a wider confusion over Chinese policy toward Pyongyang, which depends on Beijing for food and fuel, as well as diplomatic support.

As North Korea readies what is thought to be a missile test, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has spent most of the week deflecting questions with the official line that "all sides" should show restraint and begin dialogue, and that peace and stability are a "shared responsibility."

But in an interview with NBC News he was more forthright about China's growing concern. "We do not want to see chaos and conflict on China's doorstep," he said.

In fact, there are signs that China is rethinking its policy toward the North. President Xi Jinping last weekend told a forum of political and business leaders that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain." He didn't mention the North by name, but it was pretty clear who he was referring to.

Earlier, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would not allow "troublemaking on China's doorstep," a line repeated in an editorial in Thursday's China Daily.

China also supported the latest UN sanctions that followed North Korea's third nuclear test.

In fact, relations between the two have been souring for some time as Pyongyang has consistently ignored calls by Beijing for restraint.

"To many in Beijing, North Korea is looking less like a strategic asset and more like a strategic burden," said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor at Renmin University's School of International Studies.

In the past, even when clearly unhappy, Beijing has treated the North with kid gloves because of fear of the North collapsing, and also as a hedge against U.S. power in Asia.

'Little Fatty'
According to leaked 2010 diplomat cables obtained by Wikileaks and posted by newspapers the Guardian and the New York Times, Chinese officials described the regime in the North as behaving like a "spoiled child."

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

Chinese social media, which is as close a barometer of public opinion as you can get here, has in recent days been buzzing with criticism -- not of the U.S., but of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for leading his country to disaster and the world close to war.

Kim is derided as "Little Fatty" or "Fatty the Third."

One former top U.S. diplomat agrees there are clear signs that China is losing patience with North Korea. Kurt Campbell, the state department's top official for east asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be "as close as lips and teeth" is wearing thin.

He said this was notable in public statements and private conversations with U.S. officials. Speaking last week at a forum at Johns Hopkins University, he said this had the potential for a large impact on northeast Asia.

What's harder to say is how this growing frustration will be translated into concrete actions to pressure the North.

Cheng of Renmin University noted that in 2003 Beijing turned off the oil supply in order to force Pyongyang to join six-party talks and could use that weapon again.

"If China has political will, China can do something," he said. "China can make a difference."

Secretary of State John Kerry will be taking this up with China's leaders when he is there this weekend.

"China and the U.S. share common interests in peace, stability and denuclearisation," said the Foreign Ministry's Hong Lei. "We hope to work with the U.S. side towards that end."

Significantly, there has so far been no Chinese criticism of the display of U.S. high-tech firepower in the region, which is seen as another tacit condemnation of Pyongyang's antics.

That said, Kerry will no doubt point out, as other officials have done privately, that if China fails to act the result will be an even bigger U.S. military presence in the region and a possible regional arms race -- precisely what China has said it wants to avoid.

Related:

US on missile watch as North Korea celebrates

Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

MAE SOT, Thailand -- Clipboard in hand, Dr Francois Nosten worked his way down a ward of malaria patients. He stopped in front of five-year-old Ayemyint Than, who sat to attention and smiled. The smile told Nosten as much as his lines of graphs and figures.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Ayemyint Than, 5, is being treated for malaria in northwestern Thailand.

"She's doing well," he said, moving to an older man, whose pale face and dull sunken eyes told a very different story. "Day five, and he's still positive?" he asked another of the doctors. "That's not very good. It means he was very slow to clear the parasite, no?"

To Nosten, it was further evidence of an alarming rise in resistance to artemisinin, currently the front-line drug in the treatment of malaria. He fears it could be the start of a global "nightmare" in which millions of people could lose their lives.

"We have to beat this resistance, win this race and eliminate the parasite before it’s too late. That's our challenge now," he said.

He said that artemisinin should take about 24 hours to deal with the parasite, but it was now taking three or four days in some cases. "We are going to see patients that don't respond to the treatment anymore,” he warned.

Nosten runs the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, which is part of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine at Thailand's Mahidol University.

The unit has a string of clinics on both sides of the Moi River, which marks the porous border between Thailand and Myanmar.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Migrants cross the Moi River, marking the border between Myanmar and Thailand.

Nosten set up the first one in 1986, since when there has been a steady fall in the total number of cases of malaria, but most recently a worrying emergence of drug resistance.

He first sounded the alarm in research published earlier this year, following the emergence of similar drug resistance along the Thai-Cambodia border.

Full health coverage from NBC News

Nosten’s not sure whether the resistance he's found has spread from the Cambodia border or is home-grown. Either way, he's worried.

"It means that all the progress of the last 10 to 15 years will be lost," he warned. "Now the resistance is here, we worry that we are running out of time."

Ian Williams / NBC News

Staff examine a baby who has been brought to the clinic with a fever, suspected to be malaria.

The malaria parasite -- carried by infected mosquitoes from person to person -- still kills an estimated 655,000 people a year.

That's almost 2,000 a day, mostly in Africa, with children being most at risk.

If the world loses its front-line drug, the impact could be devastating.

"The nightmare scenario is that the resistance will travel," Nosten said.

"We know what will happen in Africa when resistance is bad because we've been there before in the 1990s with chloroquine (another anti-malarial drug) … millions of deaths," he warned.

"We must prevent artemisinin resistance reaching Africa, but we also need to control it for the people in Asia - for their future."

Ian Williams / NBC News

Dr Francois Nosten, right, consults staff as he meets malaria patients at a clinic near Mae Sot, Thailand.

Resistance to just about every major anti-malarial drug has started in the border regions that have been home to Nosten for more than 25 years.

Nobody knows exactly why, but poverty, conflict and large migrant and refugee populations constantly on the move all likely play a part. As do fake drugs or a failure to properly complete a course of treatment.

In the case of chloroquine, once the anti-malarial drug of choice, it took less than 20 years for resistance to spread from the borders of Thailand to Africa.

Study: Mosquitoes change habits to avoid anti-malaria nets

Nosten is worried that artemisinin resistance is growing much faster than he'd anticipated, with the drug failing initially to fully clear the parasite in more than half the cases he now sees.

"It initially goes after a few days, then it comes back. We see that more and more now," he said.

"In 2009, we still had 90 percent of patients cured. In 2010, it dropped to 60 to 70 percent. Now it's about 50 percent," he added.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Migrants from Myanmar wait to be examined at a clinic on the Thai side of the border.

Some scientists claim this is too alarmist, since the parasite does eventually die, with longer treatment and higher drug doses, but Nosten sees no room for complacency.

"We have to respond quickly, not next year or three years' time. It's now or probably it will be too late," he said.

Artemisinin comes from a Chinese plant and is quick, potent and with no side effects. Little wonder it has been hailed as a wonder drug, the golden bullet in the global fight against malaria.

What makes the resistance so worrying is that there is no new drug ready to replace it.

Nosten said that although several drugs are in development, they could be five to 10 years away from deployment "if they make it  … and we haven't got five to 10 years.”

The Shoklo Malaria Research Unit runs its own labs fashioned out of a sprawling old Thai house in the border town of Mae Sot, where teams of research scientists are working to better understand the parasite and the mosquitoes that carry it from person to person.

It is here that Chiara Andolina keeps mosquitoes that are literally hand-reared -- fed from her arm, which she extends through a mesh hole into a container of the hungry creatures every three days.

"Usually I feed around 600 of them in a cage like this," she said.

Of course these are not infected mosquitoes, though watching them settle on her arm for a good lunch is not a sight for the squeamish.

Read more international coverage from NBC News

In another room, Nosten settled over photographs showing the rapid development of the parasite once it has invaded a blood cell.

"If you can kill them very, very young -- like these -- they don't have time to develop into big fatty ones," he said, his pen jabbing at the photo. "These fatty ones are the ones that get stuck in your brain and kill you."

In other rooms, the DNA of parasites was being isolated and sequenced and drugs were being tested as part of Nosten and his team’s efforts to figure out what's behind the emerging resistance.

They are also looking for vulnerabilities and new ways to attack their enemy.

"It's hugely important to understand what's going on and contain it if we can," Nosten said. "We need to try things. We need to explore. It’s like exploring new territories in malaria."

Bazell: Malaria vaccine a half-effective, temporary protection

The French scientist has spent most of his working life in the tropics, initially with the medical humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières.

He believes he is engaged in a vital battle -- "a race against malaria" -- as he puts it.

After so many years on the malarial front lines, the battle has become deeply personal.

He dreams of completely eliminating this familiar but wily enemy.

However, he also knows that with the emergence of artemisinin resistance the stakes have never been higher.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Drug-resistant malaria threatens deadly global 'nightmare'
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• UK police: Attackers dressed as Oompa Loompas beat man
• Vatican launches swipe-card security system
• US sailors sue Japan's TEPCO for post-quake radiation exposure

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

BEIJING - There was anger and dismay after North Korea launched a long-range rocket into orbit on Wednesday -- plenty of it in South Korea and Japan. There was also surprise.

North Korea had warned of a possible delay to the launch for "technical reasons," although there was speculation that the real reason was political, that China was applying pressure behind the scenes. After all, Beijing had expressed "deep concern" over the test, and that is pretty strong for China, the North's closest diplomatic and economic ally.

So Wednesday's test would seem to be an extraordinary snub to China, when it might be assumed that North Korea's new young leader, Kim Jong Un, would want to get off on a good footing with China's new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping.

North Korea watchers have been speculating that Kim is angling for an early audience with Xi, which so far has been denied.

North Korea says it successfully launched controversial satellite into orbit

KCNA via Reuters

North Korean scientists work as a screen shows the Unha-3 (Milky Way 3) rocket being launched Wednesday.

Launching a rocket in defiance of Beijing would hardly seem a great way of achieving it.

Beijing's initial response was a masterful piece of diplomatic contortionism -- expressing "regret" and calling on Pyongyang to abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions, but at the same time making clear that China isn't about to back sanctions against the North.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman called for a resumption of six-party talks, even though these have been widely discredited, and called for "all sides" to act calmly.

North Korea claims US mainland within range of its missiles

International talks are a big favorite of Beijing, which likes the role of diplomatic ringmaster.

Pyongyang squandered the United States’ trust earlier this year after its April missile test torpedoed a February agreement with the Americans that would have traded U.S. food aid for a suspension of major elements of its nuclear program.

So, what to make of North Korean-China relations? And what pressure is China willing and able to exert on North Korea?

Despite the rocket launch’s international reverberations, Pyongyang's motive was largely domestic, according to Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental organization that works to prevent deadly conflict around the world.

The move was meant to boost the standing of the young Kim, who has not yet fully consolidated power, and whose credibility was damaged by the failure earlier this year of another attempt to put a satellite into orbit (a thinly disguised ballistic missile test in the view of the U.S. and her allies), she said.

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un still a mystery, Leon Panetta says

And it is fair to speculate that Kim was probably on the edge of his seat during the launch.

"This definitely will be used heavily for internal propaganda in North Korea," Kleine-Ahlbrandt told NBC News. "It's certainly important in light of the failed rocket launch we saw in April."

There have also been reports in the South Korean press (always to be taken with caution) that after purging his enemies, Kim himself  was feeling vulnerable, and had limited his travel outside of Pyongyang while beefing up security around his residences with armored vehicles.

Pyongyang also probably wanted to show Beijing that it is not beholden to anybody, Kleine-Ahlbrandt said, which would seem like quite a high stakes game given the parlous state of the North Korean economy.

Reuters TV

A North Korean KRT TV presenter announces the successful launch in this still image taken from TV.

North Korea: We found a unicorn lair

So, how to read China’s reaction?

“They could certainly do more to pressure Pyongyang,” Kleine-Ahlbrandt said. “And the West would certainly like to see them do that.”

As Beijing prizes stability above all else and would not want to do anything that would further exacerbate tensions or hasten the demise of a fragile regime, China may have a longer-term goal in mind, she said. Beijing was probably intent on heading off another nuclear test, which the North has hinted at, and that would be seen internationally as a far graver development than Wednesday’s rocket launch.

Yan Xuetong, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, had a more nuanced view of Chinese diplomacy.

“If China wants to maintain its relatively large influence over North Korea, it has no choice but to adopt a different policy,” than the U.S., he told Reuters.

China was likely as surprised as anybody else by the timing of the launch.

If it is to step up pressure, Beijing is unlikely to publicize it actions. Its immediate aim has been to get the North to adopt Chinese-style economic reforms.

Back in 2010, as part of the leak of the U.S. diplomatic cable, it was revealed that Chinese officials had described North Korea as a “spoiled child.”  That assessment is unlikely to have changed.

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YANGON, Myanmar -- U Ming Kyi affectionately tapped the hood of his dilapidated bus. “Of course I’ll be sad to see it go. They are really reliable. The brakes are great,” he said.

But on this particular morning, bus No. 61 from North Dagon to San Pya market was not cooperating. The engine screeched and smoked as U Ming sat behind the wheel, turning the key and willing it to life.

He gave up and glanced back at the passengers. As if on cue -- and clearly well practiced -- several jumped from the bus and began pushing until it spluttered, gasped, then finally roared to life.

Bus no 61 was on its way across the north of Yangon, as it has been for decades.

U Ming smiled gingerly. He has been driving these buses for 35 years, and keeping on the road what are possibly the oldest buses in the world still operating needs constant improvisation.

Ian Williams/NBC News

Driver U Ming Kyi at the wheel of bus number 61. He's been driving the Big Belly Chevy for 35 years.

In Myanmar they are called “big belly” buses and the chassis of no 61 was registered in 1939. Back then it was a military truck -- a Canada-built Chevy C-15. These were used by the United States, Britain and western allies during the "Burma Campaign" -- the southeast Asia theater of World War II.

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After the conflict, Myanmar’s military regime converted them into buses. The makeshift vehicles quickly became the mainstay of a transport system that resembled until recently an antiques show on wheels.

But in a sign of the rapid wider changes sweeping this country, they have been banned from the increasingly traffic-clogged center of Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, and are being phased out to be replaced by shiny new Japanese models.

Ian Williams/NBC News

Passengers packed on board bus number 61. Big Belly Bus.

The price of an old “big belly” has suddenly gone through the roof -- not because of the vehicle, which is off to the junk yard, but because of the valuable operating license that goes with it.

If he had the money, U Ming would buy one himself. “The new ones just won’t be the same,” he said. He can read every crunch, bang and hiss -- of which there are many on a bumpy, shaky ride across the city.

Like most vehicles here, the “big belly” is right-hand drive, a legacy of British rule when traffic drove on the left. Yet the traffic in Myanmar now drives on the right, as in the United States, which means drivers like U Ming spend a good deal of their time straining to see what is coming at them.

Former dictator Ne Win made the switch after seizing power in 1962. Some say it was an anti-colonial gesture. Others put it down to his notorious superstition: Britain’s Daily Telegraph said he took the decision after consulting a wizard.

Ian Williams/NBC News

The interior of a Big Belly Bus.

That these buses operated for so long, patched together with whatever parts were available during years of isolation and sanctions, is testament to the ingenuity of men like U Ming.

All is not lost, though. Long-time Italian resident Alberto Peyre has bought three and given them a luxurious face lift to serve the country's tourism boom.

“They are a piece of history, a piece of history,” he said, as immaculately dressed attendants handed us cold towels as we sat in expensively upholstered seats for a mini-tour of the city.

“I love these buses. I just love them,” he said.

Peyre’s company, Elephant Coach, is marketing tours as “the ultimate luxury in overland travel.” It’s a long way from the U Ming’s no 61, but it will ensure that these remarkable old machines will not entirely disappear from the streets of Myanmar.

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Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

Chinese President Hu Jintao is seen speaking at the opening of the 18th Communist Party Congress on a television in a subway train in Shanghai on Nov. 8.

BEIJING -- I arrived in Beijing for what the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, described as “one of the biggest political events in history.”

“Are you watching?” I asked my driver on the way in from the airport. He looked at me and laughed. “Why would I watch that?” he replied.

A little later I settled down in my hotel bar over a glass of Great Wall cabernet sauvignon.  “Are you watching the Congress?” I asked my server. Again that quizzical look. “Oh, I don’t care about that,” she replied, before slipping behind the bar and resuming whatever she was doing on her mobile phone, which judging by her concentration she did care about very much.

The 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has begun with great pomp and ceremony in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. It is important -- a once-in-a-decade leadership change at a time when the country is facing enormous challenges, from a faltering economy to rampant corruption that goes to the core of the party.

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But among many Chinese, away from the stuffy heart of this city (from which carrier pigeons have been banned, incidentally, as a security precaution), the meeting might as well be taking place on the moon, among green aliens with spiky heads.

That's how relevant it seems to them.

The official media has given it blanket coverage, while at the same time trying to limit discussion in China's vibrant social media -- slowing internet speeds and even blocking the Chinese translation for the 18th Congress from search engines.

Aside from the pigeon ban, taxis are required to keep their back windows locked, presumably to prevent the distribution of subversive pamphlets, and tiny remote-controlled aircraft have been outlawed.

Still, the party “will continue to inject vigor to national politics,” declared the Global Times at the weekend.

“Vigor” isn’t the first world that comes to mind when you see the line up of gray men (you’ll be hard pressed to find many woman near the top of the CPC) in gray suites, gathering mostly to dutifully endorse decisions already made.

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Much of the proceedings are behind closed doors and the main qualification for advancement in the party is to not the rock the boat. Opinions are dangerous; flamboyance can be fatal to a career in the CPC.

Diego Azubel / EPA

The party is expected to use the highly orchestrated event to persuade the nation's 1.3 billion people that it can provide another 10 years of economic growth and social stability while curbing corruption and nepotism.

The report from the retiring party boss and head of state, Hu Jintao, which kicked off the Congress, hailed as a masterpiece by Chinese newspapers, was of such length and mind-boggling tedium that initially it left analysts struggling to figure what precisely whether it was reformist, reactionary, liberal or conservative.

Probably all of the above.

Just ahead of Congress, I had embarked on a journey across the Beijing to test opinion. It was hardly scientific, but I figured I'd at least get a sense of what ordinary Chinese were thinking.

I started by bike in the narrow alleyways around the surviving hutongs in an older part of the city.

Here the residents are older too, and a question from a foreigner about the Communist Party, produces an embarrassed wave of the hand, or provokes a speedy retreat behind closed doors. Ordinary Chinese of a certain age have seen how capricious and brutal the party can be and know better than to openly discuss politics with a foreigner.

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An exception was an elderly man who stood bold upright and recited how China's new leaders would build a strong and prosperous country. But what of Xi Jinping, the man soon to be anointed leader. What does he stand for, how exactly will he do that, I asked. The door swung open and he too was gone.

I approached a man barbecuing some skewered lamb. He claimed not to understand my interpreter, though did I detect an extra touch of aggression with those skewers at the mention of the party?

I then took a taxi figuring that cabbies everywhere have an opinion. But not this one, shaking his head, waving his hand, and probably wishing his wheezing vehicle had an ejector seat. I pressed on. I know what President Obama listens to on his iPod, I explained, and what Mitt Romney has for breakfast. Did he think Xi Jinping has an iPod?

At that he just burst out laughing, and laughed, and laughed, until he dropped me at a Beijing university, where my luck changed.

Here almost all the youngsters I met had heard of Xi, but professed to know hardly anything about him. What does he stand for? Two young women looked blankly at each other. "We don’t know," they said in unison, as if this was the most stupid question they'd ever heard. Does Xi have kids? I asked another couple. "I don't know," said one. "And I don't care." said the other.

Another young man looked puzzled. "But we don't vote," he said, which I guess goes to the heart of the matter. Why should we care, he seemed to be saying, what's this process got to do with us?

Perhaps out of desperation, I did what a lot of Beijingers are doing these days and went to a fortune teller. He rumbled me immediately, and declared that he didn’t do politics, and that his crystal ball certainly didn't stretch to the Communist Party. "I don't know and I don’t care," he declared.

The party, at least its more perceptive members, do seem to recognize the challenges they -- and China -- face. But the prescription for these ills appears to be more of the same. Its still a brave and lonely voice that will call for greater openness, transparency and accountability.

The congress will end with the unveiling of the new leadership. Yet in spite of acres of fevered analysis from China-watchers, the reality is that we know virtually nothing about what Xi Jinping thinks about anything, let alone the secretive process by which he was selected.

Is he another grey and cautious techocrat or a closet reformer? Take your pick. We can all be experts in the face of the party's secrecy.

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On paper at least the Communist Party has 82 million members, but only a tiny clique make the real decisions, and there is an enormous gulf -- vast and growing -- between them and the people it is supposed to represent, a gulf filled increasingly with cynicism and distrust.

Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

President Hu Jintao, seen on a television in a motorcycle repair shop in Shanghai, called for stepped-up political reform and a revamped economic model as the Communist Party opened a historic congress to usher in a new slate of leaders.

China has changed dramatically since the party last changed its leaders a decade ago -- from the economy to the thriving social media that's such a thorn in the side of the leadership, and where the timing of the leadership change, so soon after the raucous U.S. election has provoked many an uncomfortable (for the party) comparison.

The dynamism elsewhere in China is in stark contrast with the ossified spectacle on display this week in the Great Hall. Those carrier pigeons are the least of the party’s problems.