China's capital has strengthened its counterterrorism measures with practice drills at major shopping areas ahead of the weeklong National Day holiday, the government said yesterday.
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security has held maneuvers at major department stores and supermarkets and encouraged them to establish emergency plans since the campaign was launched Sept. 16, the Xinhua News Agency said.
Drills include hostage rescues, as well as practice responses to explosions and biochemical threats.
An unnamed public security bureau spokesman was cited as saying that counterterrorism measures were "one of the top security tasks during this National Day holiday," when hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel.
"Shopping centers may become the first target of terrorists, because these places are usually crowded and it's hard to evacuate people in an emergency," he said.
There have been no reports of threats during the holiday, which begins on Friday, and it was not immediately clear why Beijing officials were beefing up security.
Chinese leaders often speak about terrorist threats, and the government claims that separatists in the country's western Xinjiang region are part of an international Islamic terrorist network fighting to turn it into an independent theocratic state.
Critics accuse Beijing of using terrorism as an excuse to tighten control over Xinjiang, a restive region divided from the rest of China by language, ethnicity and religion. Foreign experts are skeptical, however, about claims of an organized terrorist campaign.
Beijing authorities have increased the number of security guards and police patrolling shopping malls, Xinhua reported.
The official news agency also noted police concerns over a scarcity of electronic surveillance equipment and inadequate training for watchmen.
The government plans to establish anti-terrorism bureaus in major cities throughout the country, with Beijing likely to be the first, Xinhua said.
A training base for combating terrorism -- complete with models of embassies, subway lines and other major buildings -- has already been set up in the suburbs, it said, without providing further details.
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