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China rises to combat growing unrest

Chinese paramilitary police march past a tank on exhibit at Beijing's Museum of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression, on Monday. Monday marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. PHOTO: EPA

China said yesterday it is setting up elite anti-terror and riot police units equipped with everything from batons to armored vehicles, in a sign of growing concern over social unrest.

The special force will cover 36 key cities and one of the first detachments, a 500-member squad, has already been formed in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, the Xinhua news agency said.

"We're training for real combat, so in our day-to-day exercise we require of our people that they behave as if they were in a sharp situation," Ge Hongjun, a Henan police officer in charge of training the unit, said.

The brigades will be responsible for dealing with terrorist crimes, violent crimes, riots and disturbances, according to the agency.

Beijing and Shanghai will get similar units with 600 highly trained men, while Chongqing and Tianjin each will get 500-member units.

The move comes at a time when unrest is reported on an increasingly regular basis, and amid growing indications that the government is worried about the consequences.

"They want rapid growth. The only thing to do then is to have rapid growth and tighten up."

David Zweig, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The People's Daily, the Communist Party's mass-circulation mouthpiece, published a front-page commentary late last month warning that under no circumstances would threats against social stability be tolerated.

"Only if we preserve social stability will we be able to deepen reform and speed up development and solve the problems and contradictions emerging in the course of reform," the commentary said.

In an unusually frank statement, Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang also said recently that 3.8 million people participated in 74,000 protests last year, up from 10,000 protests a decade earlier.

"They are clearly concerned about this issue," said David Zweig, a China expert at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"A protest begins in China every five minutes. If the protests run longer than five minutes, then there are two going on at the same time," he said.

Unrest has become more frequent as economic reform has created inequality and intensified competition for land and other scarce resources.

"They are accepting the fact that this kind of unrest is going to happen," Zweig said.

"They want rapid growth. The only thing to do then is to have rapid growth and tighten up," he added.

It is no coincidence that Henan Province is slated to get one of the largest contingents of anti-riot police.

The province is one of the most troubled areas in China, with regular reports of unrest.

About 30 people were injured in August of last year when a land dispute in a village near Zhengzhou escalated into a violent clash with paramilitary police armed with teargas and shotguns, according to reports.

Three months later, tensions between Han Chinese and the Muslim minority, also in a rural area near Zhengzhou, boiled over and locals reported several fatalities, according to reports.

China already has a unit that is dedicated to curbing massive riots, the paramilitary People's Armed Police with nearly 1 million members, and the ministry of public security could not be reached to comment on why a new force was being created.
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