The spat began as an investigation. In April, following on government reports that illegal GMO corn and cotton had been found on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, the nonprofit Greenpeace, which monitors GMO issues, dispatched two employees to learn more.

The two visited the area referenced in the report, a GMO development site run by Huazhong Agricultural University, one of the nation's leading research institutes on crop genetics. The pair took three bags of rice seeds just outside the trial-planting area belonging to the university, which is working to develop GMO rice strains. They were planning to see if GMO seeds from the trial site had found their way to adjacent farmland.

Campus staff at the site, though, stopped them and demanded they return the seeds, saying the land outside the trial area also belonged to the university. The Greenpeace employees obliged, and were allowed to leave.

That might have been the end of the story. But Huazhong, still upset by the incident, then published an article on its website that accused Greenpeace of thieving GMO rice seeds. Greenpeace shot back, denying the accusations, while also noting that the university's test bed was located less than 20 meters from surrounding farmland--an apparent breach of state law, which requires a minimum buffer of 100 meters.

University officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The Ministry of Agriculture then weighed in. Without specifying Greenpeace by name, on Sunday, it said in a statement that said security around areas working to develop GMOs should be boosted. Greenpeace again responded, explaining why it had gone to the area, and suggested that 'problems with the management of GMO seeds planted on a trial basis at the university could have led to GMO seeds 'drifting' to areas outside the university.'

This isn't the first time Greenpeace has warned that illegal GMO grains may be running amok in China. The country is in the early stages of introducing GMO food into the human diet. While it has not yet allowed public sales of GMO grains, including rice, corn and wheat, it allows related scientific research and limited imports -- as long as the imports are used only for animal consumption. Some forms of GMO food are also permitted for humans if they've been processed, such as GMO soybeans used to manufacture soy oil. Even under these constraints, Chinese universities and companies do develop their own GMO strains.

But the prevalence of GMO food in China remains a hot potato. Public resistance to GMO continues to run deep, in part because GMOs are closely associated with fears of becoming reliant U.S. technology, which still dominates the GMO industry.

One might say the feud in Hainan has reached a draw. No law enforcement official has gotten in touch with Greenpeace so far, and there hasn't been any sign of further investigations into the matter, Greenpeace spokesman Damin Tang said. Because the seeds were quickly returned, Greenpeace also had no conclusive evidence on whether GMO seeds had indeed 'drifted' off the Sanya campus.

The debate has nonetheless spilled into China's microblogging platforms, with opinions swinging between criticism of Greenpeace and suspicion of China's government. 'You have invited a thousand people to try to eat genetically modified rice,' a blogger wrote, referring to ' taste tests' for the public conducted by officials and academics using GMO rice . 'What position are you in to talk about stealing materials and keeping secrets? What are you afraid of losing?'

Others said the police should investigate Greenpeace. 'Do you know it's an extremist environmental group?' another wrote.

But there's already a sense of resignation that the spread of GMOs is well underway in China. 'Illegal GMO products have come into supermarkets, and the agricultural ministry still pretends to be unaware of it,' Cui Yongyuan, a former TV commentator, wrote on his verified Sina Weibo account.