Officers from China’s top internal security force — the People’s Armed Police (PAP) — joined Hong Kong police on the front lines to observe anti-government protests that peaked last year, a senior foreign diplomat and an opposition politician said.
Hong Kong police took PAP officers to monitor the protesters and their tactics as part of a wider effort by the paramilitary force to deepen its understanding of the Hong Kong situation, they said.
“I’m aware that Hong Kong police officers have taken Chinese security forces to the front during protests, apparently in an observation role,” Hong Kong Legislator James To (涂謹申) said.
Photo: Reuters
To said he had reason to believe the Chinese forces included members of locally based PAP units.
The diplomat, who requested anonymity and declined to be quoted due to sensitivity over commenting on security matters, also said that PAP officers accompanied police to the front lines.
Responding to questions from Reuters, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said that the PAP was not stationed in Hong Kong, while a Hong Kong police spokesman said they “stress that there is no such visit or observation by any members of the mainland law enforcement agencies.”
China’s State Council Information Office and the Central Government’s Hong Kong Liaison Office did not respond to requests for comments.
However, the diplomat and three other foreign envoys estimated that the Chinese government had ramped up the PAP’s presence in Hong Kong to as many as 4,000 personnel — far more than previously known estimates.
Their assessments were based on intense scrutiny of the security forces’ response to the pro-democracy protests, which began in June last year, but have ebbed this year amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Reuters had reported in September last year that an unknown number of PAP were among a surge in Chinese security forces moved quietly into bases across the territory last year as Hong Kong’s government struggled to contain the mounting political unrest.
The rapidly modernized PAP is the mainland’s core paramilitary and anti-riot force, and operates separately from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Under 2018 reforms, both the PAP and PLA are under the ultimate command of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who heads the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Military Commission.
While Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have been relatively open about the low-key role of the PLA in the territory, they have never confirmed the presence of the PAP.
Some local legal experts and politicians fear the presence of the PAP — which has been devoted to internal security in mainland China — breaches the laws that protect Hong Kong’s autonomy under Chinese rule.
“I think the police and government should make clear what has been going on to ensure ‘one country, two systems’ is being respected,” To said, adding that he believed the PAP presence would remain in the territory for the foreseeable future.
Lawrence Li (李耀新), a spokesman for the Hong Kong Security Bureau, said that outside law enforcement agencies, including from the mainland, did not have the authority to enforce laws within the territory.
Neither To nor the foreign diplomats saw any sign yet that the PAP has taken enforcement measures in Hong Kong, or deployed from its bases in other than observation roles.
However, the diplomats said that taken together with the numbers of PLA troops that also expanded last year, the estimated 12,000-strong force marks the largest ever Chinese security deployment in Hong Kong.
The PAP units are concentrated within PLA bases at the former British military forts at Stonecutters Island and Stanley on southern Hong Kong island — both shielded from public view, the diplomatic sources said.
The size of the force has stayed relatively static in recent months, the sources added.
The often violent street protests erupted over a now scrapped extradition bill that could have sent people to mainland China for trial, but they later broadened into wider calls for democracy.
While they have subsided during the health scare, many people expect the protests to resume before legislative elections in September.
Diplomatic envoys and security analysts said they are closely watching the PAP in Hong Kong, because they believe it, rather than the army, would spearhead any crackdown should the CCP leadership in Beijing choose to intervene in future protests.
However, they believe any such deployment remains unlikely, given Hong Kong’s large and well-equipped police force, and the likely international impact of any such move.
Formed in 1982, the PAP was used to suppress insurrection and riots in restive mainland regions, such as Xinjiang and Tibet.
Singapore-based military analyst Alexander Neill said the deployment of the PAP force to Hong Kong was a sign Beijing sees protests in the territory as a vital issue of domestic security.
“Looking at it through that lens, it is a Chinese internal security problem and that is what the PAP is there for. That is their role, so I think they are going to be in Hong Kong for some time yet,” Neill said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to