The English lesson is titled "Disturbance," and the students are equally unusual -- 38 police officers training to become UN peacekeepers and join China's effort to expand its diplomatic role on the world stage.
In a classroom at a police academy south of Beijing, the students prepare to fight crime in trouble areas abroad by reading a mock burglary investigation.
"What's your information about why the door was open?" the students mouth the words silently, following a voice in their headphones. "Come to the station and we'll take your testimony."
The students are a key part of a striking trend for Chinese foreign policy as Beijing, easing out of its reluctance to get involved in foreign conflicts, takes a growing role in UN peacekeeping duty.
China's first major UN duty was a 1992 to 1994 mission in Cambodia by 800 military engineers. It sent police on their first UN mission in East Timor in 2001, and since then has sent 232 officers to Bosnia, Liberia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
China's police peacekeepers are law-enforcement veterans, some with nearly 20 years of service. They pass a demanding screening process that tests physical fitness and professional skills.
"This is an international duty for our police officers, and it's also a way for me to learn other skills from police from other countries," said Zhu Yinghua, a female student from the Shanghai police who came to the school last month.
The peacekeeping initiative coincides with sweeping changes in China's formerly passive foreign policy. Over the past two years, Beijing has engaged more with its Southeast and Central Asian neighbors and held military drills with India and France.
Some Western scholars suggest that its role in UN peacekeeping could signal a softening of China's traditionally rigid view of sovereignty and nonintervention in other countries' affairs.
Despite China's growing peacekeeping role, its police school was off-limits to foreign reporters until now. The Public Security Ministry opened its doors last week in what officers said was the first visit ever by foreign reporters.
Soldiers train for UN duties at a separate facility near Beijing that still is closed to reporters.
The police school is preparing to move soon into a custom-built campus rising from a former feed lot surrounded by fruit trees. The price is 150 million yuan (US$18 million).
Construction workers are completing indoor and outdoor firing ranges, a sports field, a driving course and new classrooms.
The new campus will allow China to train about 250 police officers at a time, said police Senior Colonel Qu Zhiwen, a compact, commanding figure who has been the school's director since shortly after China began training police for UN duty in 1999.
One day, China hopes to train peacekeepers from other Asian nations, Qu said, a proud smile creasing his tanned face.
"I think this is a real sign of the importance China places on peacekeeping work," he said.
The school has brought in guest lecturers from police forces in Norway, Ireland and elsewhere to create an "international environment" for recruits, Qu said.
Applicants must be at least 25 years old, with at least five years of police experience.
The three month long course focuses on police techniques, landmine detection, driving and English.
Classses include as human rights and media relations. Such issues didn't matter much until lately for a Chinese police force whose major task is protecting Communist rule. But they are getting growing attention as Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Olympics.
Students' biggest problems are with English and driving, Qu said. Few own cars and they need special training in driving on rough roads.
But at the conclusion, more than 80 percent pass the UN test to become peacekeepers.
Chinese peacekeepers haven't suffered any casualties abroad, but hazards include dengue fever and car crashes.
Peacekeeping service can be a career booster, especially if it results in UN awards or promotion within the UN operation.
Chinese officers "carry a heavy political and national responsibility," said Gao Xinman, who headed the Performance Assessment Office in the Bosnia mission.
"Police from some countries tend to see it merely as a job," she said. "But I am very aware that I am from China and must perform well."
For Tang Manying, an 18-year police veteran from the Guiyang region in China's southwest, peacekeeping school has less to do with geopolitics and more to do with career satisfaction.
"I really wanted to gain new experiences and learn new skills," she said.
"And it's an important thing," she said. "It's a proud thing, to help others in conflict."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing