[Clancy:] Violence flaring along Syria's border with Lebanon, gunmen killed three Lebanese soldiers at a checkpoint in Arsal. That is a town that's considered to be very sympathetic to Syria's Sunni Muslim rebels. Lebanon state news agency NNA also reporting two rockets fired from inside Syria landed in the Lebanese city of Hermel. That's a Hezbollah stronghold. Hezbollah, of course, dispatching hundreds if not thousands of fighters into Syria to help support the Bashar al-Assad government. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition says the European Union decision to allow weapon shipments to the rebels is welcome, but it's not enough. Russia criticized the lifting of the E.U.'s embargo, saying it could undermine next month's planned Syria peace talks in Geneva. The E.U. decision would allow member states to arm the rebels if they so chose, beginning in August. At least four people killed by a car bomb that exploded in a Shia Muslim district of Iraq's capital, at least 25 others have been wounded in that attack in a busy intersection in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. That follows a deadly day on Monday, a day when some nine car motorcycle bombs killed at least 51 people and wounded 160 more in a wave of political and sectarian violence and most of it inside the capital, Baghdad. A cruise to the Bahamas cut short after a fire broke out on this ship. More than 3,000 passengers and crew were aboard Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas. The ship made it safely to Freeport in the Bahamas. No one seriously hurt. The cause of the fire not yet known. All this week we are taking a very special look at China, exploring the ways that the country's rapid rise is helping it assert itself as a dominant player on the global stage. But China's growth is also causing conflicts with others, including accusations the country is engaging in computer hacking attacks. China denies an Australian media report that hackers in Beijing stole top secret government documents from Canberra. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation program alleged that hackers breached the prime minister's office and cabinet as well as the departments of foreign affairs and defense. It also claimed that a cyber-attack from a server inside China stole blueprints to the new headquarters of Australia's top intelligence organization. Australian Prime Minister Julie Dillard describes the report as and I'm quoting here "inaccurate." A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said the allegations are, in his words, "a baseless accusation."
[Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman:] Because the source of the hacking is untraceable, it is difficult to identify the source of the cyber-attack and is also difficult to identify the hacker. So I don't know where the evidence comes from that the relevant report say is so reliable.
[Clancy:] China faces a number of challenges. It's trying to cement its position as a superpower in the world. The country's stratospheric growth is also seen the creation of entirely new cities. Sometimes the developments haven't gone entirely as planned. Ivan Watson is there.
[Ivan Watson, Cnn International Correspondent:] This is the Chinese dream, a young couple, posing for wedding photos. The Zhangs have traveled more than 100 miles for this photo shoot in a park in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou. It's an oasis in an urban landscape of recently constructed towers of glass and steel. But the newlyweds say they can't afford living this Chinese dream. And the same goes for a 25-year-old Li Cai Juan and her friends. They tell us they'd like to live here, but they simply can't afford it. As China's economy has surged, Zhengzhou has experienced a construction boom in an area nearly twice the size of San Francisco. Entire new districts of towers have sprung up where 10 years ago locals say there were only empty fields. Experts call this a uniquely Chinese model of urban development.
[Tom Miller, Author:] China is different because it has this very authorization power structure. And the power rests in the hands of very few people. And that means that local government officials can take big decisions. So looking ahead to 10-15 years, and they can therefore build ahead and create something for a society that hasn't really arrived yet.
[Watson:] Developers are working hard to populate the city's new districts, advertising a buy-two-floors-for-the-price-of-one deal in a new apartment building. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is how one of the real estate companies in town is advertising this new city. And they're basically pitching it to customers as an entire city under construction.
[Unidentified Female:] [Inaudible],
[A, B, C. Watson:] In the showroom, I get a look at plans for a massive new office park.
[Watson:] Do you think there are going to be enough customers for all of this?
[Unidentified Female:] Altogether, probably not, because some people are buying property only for investments.
[Watson:] Investment: experts say some of China's booming real estate market is being driven by wealthy Chinese investors, like this man, who's signing a deal for the purchase of two new unfinished offices. He and his friends say they make much more money buying up property than they would parking their money in banks, where interest rates are low. This speculation in the real estate market has led to some strange results. In Zhengzhou, we find brand-new buildings standing empty. Take this shopping mall, for example. Looks can be deceiving. Outside the signs advertise the shopping experience in this mall, which opened up months ago. But look indoors. There's not a single store in this massive empty space. Ghost developments like this have led some observers to question China's development strategy; if you build it, they will come.
[Miller:] China has ways of making them come as well. So it's build it and they will come and build it and force them to come to a certain extent. But of course, there will be big waste from investments [inaudible] along the way.
[Watson:] So China keeps building, betting that eventually its rapidly growing urban population will need these houses even if, for now, many ordinary Chinese people simply can't afford them Ivan Watson, CNN, Zhengzhou, China.
[Clancy:] Well, Zhengzhou, you know, isn't alone. It's not unique. China has several so-called ghost cities or ghost developments. Shanghai Pudong is considered a classic example of China's urbanization strategy. You're looking at a time lapse of the city's growth. Shanghai, of course, China's financial center, but until the 1990s, Pudong was mostly just farmland, and that's when the government started to build it up and up. And it went from empty to full of millions of people. China expert Stephen Roach says, "China cannot afford to wait to build its new cities. Instead, investment and construction must be aligned with the future influx of urban dwellers." Traditional medicine, very popular in China. You've been there, you know that. You see the stalls all around the countryside and on urban streets. Well, now there's a move to take it mainstream in the West. Andrew Stevens reports one treatment could be on the verge of breaking through.
[Andrew Stevens, Cnn Correspondent:] Berry Choi is on her fifth day of treatment using traditional Chinese medicine or
[Tcm. Berry Choi, Chinese Medicine User:] I got influenza and I'm coughing. Sometimes I will feel dizzy and, in general, much worse after taking Western medicine. I think Chinese medicine is better.
[Stevens:] Ms. Choi is not alone in thinking that. TCM is a $35 billion industry in China, says Shanghai-based China Market Research. And, it says, the market will likely grow at an astonishing 25 percent a year for at least the next three years. For all its popularity though, Chinese medicine is on sale in hundreds of small outlets like this one across Hong Kong, it's never been used in mainstream prescription medicine. But that could be about to change.
[Unidentified Male:] In 2000, Hutchison China MediTech was established.
[Stevens:] Nutrition Science Partners, a collaboration between Hong Kong-based Chi-Med and the food giant Nestle, is doing final stage testing to get U.S. and European approval for a TCM to treat bowel problems like colitis and Crohn's disease. It's a two-year, multimillion dollar trial that Chi-Med's CEO, Christian Hogg, is confident that HMPL-004, as it's now known, will be a game-changer.
[Christian Hogg, Ceo, Chi-med:] The more similar it is to conventional drugs, the better from the FDA's standpoint.
[Stevens:] One of the biggest barriers to entry into Western mainstream medicine has been the sheer complexity of Chinese medicine, a regular prescription drug has maybe one or a few active ingredients. Chinese remedies have many. These treatments can literally use hundreds of active ingredients, all of which, if they were tested by the FDA, would have to be individually approved, but not HMPL-004. This is a single extract thank you very much from a plant known as Andrographis. It grows across Southeast Asia and East Asia and it's been used for centuries to treat things like stomach ailments and flu.
[Hogg:] I think as time goes by and these products are proven to be safe and effective, the scope will be broadened and more Chinese herbal medicines will be able to get to the global market.
[Stevens:] And it may not be long before the more complex treatments go mainstream as well, says Yibin Feng, a professor of Chinese medicine at Hong Kong University.
[Dr. Yibin Feng, Hong Kong University:] New technology and advanced skills now allow us to find the essential or active ingredients in complex medicines and how they work together to help create more holistic treatments.
[Stevens:] And that won't surprise the millions who use traditional Chinese medicine across the globe every day.
[Choi:] I think Chinese medicines are absolutely valuable. Therefore I think Chinese medicine should be introduced to friends of my China.
[Stevens:] A taste, perhaps, of things to come Andrew Stevens, CNN, Hong Kong.
[Clancy:] All right. "The Age of China," we got a lot coming your way. You can get complete coverage of "The Age of China" on our website from business news to lifestyle features. More like this photo gallery of elaborate wedding photos that are a status symbol for Chinese couples. There's a lot in there. You'll like that. Find it all at CNN.comChina. The United States suffering a spate of destructive tornadoes in recent weeks. The damage left behind in Oklahoma and Texas, testament to the very power of these twisters. But now we want to bring you a different perspective. Storm chasers shot this in the central state of Kansas on Monday. They were literally inside a tornado intercept vehicle. The howling wind you heard there blew one of the doors off. But the vehicle stayed on the ground thank goodness. So how did they manage to survive that tornado? Mari Ramos has all the answers for us, and she joins us now from the World Weather Center. Mari, I don't know if I'd want to be in one of those storm chasers with the doors flying off.
[Mari Ramos, Ams Meteorologist:] Let me tell you something, when they go storm chasing, you have a lot of amateurs and then you have the pros. And even the pros will stay usually about at least a kilometer, maybe two kilometers away from the twister itself because when they're approaching, you want to be able to tell which way the storm is actually moving and be able to have a safe way to get away from that. You don't want to get caught inside your vehicle during a tornado or anywhere outdoors, really. It's extremely dangerous and no one would ever recommend that. But these guys are pros and they have a vehicle that looks a little bit like this.
[Ramos:] There's a video that you were showing of the tornado approaching. They actually wanted to be in the path of this tornado. I wanted to show you the other video first of all, that one right there. That is what this tornado intercept vehicle looks like. They paid us a visit here at CNN Center not too long ago. I remember going out there and kind of reminded me of an armadillo or maybe a turtle, just because it's so close in like that. If you look closely, that right there, those stabilized the car lowers down to the ground so that no wind can get under it and lift it up. And then they have these tubes, these metal tubes on the sides, those right there. But those actually kind of burrow down into the ground to help the vehicle become even more stable. Obviously it's not going to happen in the pavement, but in those dirt roads out there in Oklahoma, they were able to do that. And that's our CNN meteorologist, Chad Myers, kind of climbing in there to the vehicle there in the background. And you see that bubble kind of toward the top, that's where they put the IMAX camera. And the Sean Casey, the IMAX photographer this time around, was able to get up there and actually shoot video in IMAX while that tornado. Let's go ahead and roll the pictures of the tornado now, because I really want you to be able to see this. We've got the IMAX footage, of course. This is the regular footage of the tornado. And then here you see the tornado approaching. While they were inside the vehicle, of course, they did want to get in the path so that they can shoot this amazing footage that they were looking for. Now he did put in his Sean Casey, the IMAX photographer, put in his Facebook page TIV, the vehicle, the tornado intercept vehicle, just hit by a very strong tornado. We are OK and filmed IMAX. Hit with lots of debris. Door opened; piece of wood entered the vehicle, extremely dangerous. The vehicle itself is made to withstand winds that are close to 160 kph, which is already pretty intense. This time around they were caught in a tornado that is estimated to be between 220-280 kph. And when you look at that footage, notice that the wind appears to be coming from the back side of the vehicle or at least from behind us, from this perspective. One of the things to remember about tornadoes and why this is so important, this is not just for fun that they're doing this. A lot of research will come into play when they look at this; see which way the winds are turning around, how the debris patterns actually work. And it's amazing, amazing to be able to see this kind of information, really, and this kind of images coming out of this and, of course, for no one to be hurt in the process. So they really were able to do it the right way. There is the possibility of severe weather again across portions of the U.S. and we'll be tracking it, I'm sure, that Brandon and Sean will be doing that as well.
[Clancy:] Yes, Brandon, you know, this really risky because you, like you noted, the door flies open, the winds are going 220 kph or more. What does that do when a piece of a picket fence, even a straw it has been documented is actually going through people? So you know, don't try this at home, I guess?
[Ramos:] Yes. One of the things that they say about like they were able to study with stuff like this is how other structures are actually able to withstand such strong winds. So like I said, a lot of information can come from images such as that.
[Clancy:] All right. And they were fascinating images. Thanks for sharing, Mari. I remember that truck visited us.
[Ramos:] That's right.
[Clancy:] It's nice to see it back in action. Thank you. Now you're watching NEWS STREAM. And would you want this man to deliver your dinner? Just ahead, a pepperoni pizza that proved too much for him to resist.