Songshan Lake, a new high-tech area on the outskirts of the southern city of Dongguan, aims to have everything Dongguan itself lacks -- fresh air, lots of green zones and crime-free streets.
Backed by ample amounts of government cash, Songshan Lake hopes to lure the super league of international businesses with a promise that security guards and closed-circuit cameras will guarantee law and order.
"We only want high-quality people to settle down here," said Chen Xiaohui (
Dongguan, a once rural county that has grown rich and urbanized on the back of Taiwan and Hong Kong money, is a completely different story.
Local entrepreneurs say, only half-jesting, that it is unwise to use a cellphone in public, because a pickpocket will have grabbed it in a matter of minutes.
It is impossible to give even a rough estimate of the cost to business from petty crime like this, but executives complain it gives the city a bad name and makes clients more reluctant to visit.
"I have customers here who were robbed," said David Yang, the general manager of Finnish telecom equipment maker Elcoteq's plant in Dongguan.
"You get this reputation. People say, `Dongguan, that's a scary place.' And in this kind of business, you always have customers visit," he said.
While Dongguan may stand out, it is merely indicative of what appears, based on official statistics, to be a general rise in crime in Guangdong Province, southern China's industrial powerhouse.
The provincial police handled a total 67,596 cases of theft last year, up 45 percent from the year before, while also dealing with 54,111 cases of assault, up 12 percent, according to government data.
In the city of Shenzhen, an hour's drive from Dongguan, officials call the task of maintaining public security "arduous."
"We have many people arriving from outside the city, which makes city management difficult," said Shenzhen Vice Mayor Zhang Siping (
Crime has been fueled by the province's spectacular boom, which has seen annual GDP per capita grow from 480 yuan (US$60) to more than 16,000 yuan in the past generation.
"We attract talent from all over China, and we also attract thieves from all over China," a local official said.
In Dongguan, the most common offense is committed by motorcycle gangs who ride by pedestrians and snatch their handbags and cellphones.
Now, the Dongguan authorities have adopted a radical approach to solving this particular issue.
They have banned motorcycles registered outside the city since July, and from next September all motorcycles will be prohibited within city limits, regardless of where they are registered.
Even though some might argue that "motorbikes don't steal, people do," citizens in Dongguan say the measure has actually worked. One of them is Joan Zhang, an executive at Yulan Wallcoverings.
"Before July, crime was a problem, but since July there has been a clear improvement in the situation," said Zhang, herself a victim of a botched bag robbery.
Street crime is endemic in all big cities in China's freewheeling south. In Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, a special 500-strong unit of armed police is scheduled to start patrols this fall.
But some companies are not taking any chances.
Yang explained how he and a group of other companies planned to take matters into their own hands.
"We are trying to build up a patrol ourselves. We're trying to get people more than six feet [1.8m] tall to patrol the streets, carrying sticks," he said. "I cannot control all of Dongguan City, but at least I can control what happens nearby."
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat