Is it safe to travel to China with the threat of avian flu?

I'm going on a two-week trip to China this summer (to Beijing, Xi'an, and Chengdu specifically) with a student group.

Hopefully I'm just being silly, but I have this fear that there will be an outbreak of bird flu while I'm over there and I won't be allowed back in the USA for fear of contamination or something.

So first of all, what exactly is going on with the bird flu right now? Has it spread to humans? Is China affected? Is it safe to travel there (from a health point of view)?

Also, if there was an outbreak of bird flu or something, could I legally be kept from returning to the USA?

Just don't hang around birds alive or dead. Dont eat any bird or use any bird products. You should be fine. I was over in asia while they had it and i'm fine.

There have not been any threats of that lately....it's been several years since the threats were a serious issue. Stay away from live poultry and don't eat undercooked meat.

Ask your doctor if they can offer you any flu shots . Better safe than sorry.

Stay away from rural areas and only eat fowl in good restaurants and you'll be fine.

It is very unlikely you would be anywhere near avian flu.
Yes, you could be prevented from returning, but that is a very low risk (like winning the lottery twice)
It is always risky to travel in foreign lands, but it broadens the mind.
You will probably get diarrhea, but nothing worse.

Bird Flu is not currently transmissable between people, and cases have been reported world wide including in Europe and the UK.

It is transmissable between birds and people, but only in cases of close contact between birds and people, eg people living in an area where birds live.

You are certainly safe unless you are likely to be sleeping in an area with birds, and even then it would be a very minimal risk as bird flu isn't that wide spread in china.

In the very unlikely event that the disease mutates to be transmissable by peopl within the two weeks your there quarantine would be almost impossible, so where you are in the world will make little difference.

The legality of stopping you returning from the US is unknown to me, but the idea of the US stopping its own citizens returning seems implausible, and if such a situation were to occur, it seems more likely they'd return you to the US and then place you in quarantine in the US, after all China is not a friendly country.

Update - Flu shots only protect against existing known forms of human flu and the ones in the US will only protect against the forms prevalent in the US at the moment, and would be entirely useless.
You cannot catch bird flu from eating infected birds.

That was a real concern for the last couple of years. If you are in a place/city or other confined area/ where a major outbreak or epidemic is happening, then you might have a hard time leaving. Didn't you watch resident evil??

All sorts of ugly diseases can show up in any part of the world at any time, including in good old USA. Avian flu has gotten a good spot of publicity, but that doesn't mean it's an actual huge threat to you. If people do freak out and quarantine you, well, you'll either be quarantined in a sterile lifeless room in China or a sterile lifeless room in America or a sterile lifeless room in any other country you have the bad luck of eating germy soup in. They'll heal you and eventually you'll be back at home in your parents' arms. Or you'll die. The sad truth is, even though Americans have been taught to think that medical science can cure everything, humans ARE vulnerable to disease and there ARE conditions and diseases that kill people around the world every day, including ones that not even American doctors can cure. You can die no matter where you are. It's surprising how few Americans really realize that. There are Americans who think that it's impossible for them to die in a car accident, as long as they have the right of way.

Basically, you can get sick and die no matter where you go. No matter where you go, if you get a big famous disease, you'll be quarantined in some crappy facility before you get to run around free in the good ol' USA. Stop hiding from death and start living life. Everything that lives, after all, does die, so you kinda defeat the purpose of life by hiding away like a corpse all the time to avoid its downfalls.

Bird flu has not been documented in human to human transmission. People coming down with it have EXTREMELY close contact with infected fowl (vets, farmers, poor families often sleep & live with their livestock in China); unless you are planning a trip to a poultry farm, bird sanctuary etc you should be fine.

Take the usual precautions: hand sanitizer, do not eat street food, bottled water, etc. Get a Hepatitis A vaccination.

A bird flu epidemic as you are envisoning (sweeping through cities, grounding airplanes etc has not happened)