Beijing police beef up for APEC

Police in Beijing's Huairou district have added to and integrated their forces in a move to ensure security at the APEC meeting there in November.

Aerial view of Yanqi Lake in Huairou district in Beijing. For China Daily

The redeployment has been in the works for almost a year, mainly targeting the district's rural mountain areas, which have fewer officers because of their smaller populations, the Beijing Public Security Bureau said in a statement on Monday.

The bureau has dispatched more forces to the district's Tanghekou police station, which covers four townships that include more than 300 villages in the district's mountain areas, to head off any security risks during the APEC meeting, the statement said.

For example, at least four police officers, including a deputy director, from Liulimiao police station have worked in Tanghekou, while each township has been required to hire more than five security guards to assist the police and boost patrols, said Zhang Jicheng, a police officer at the publicity center at the district sub-bureau.

Some other authorities, including traffic, forest protection and firefighting units, have also allocated officers to take part in meetings at the Tanghekou police station and share emergency information with it, Zhang said.

Zhang confirmed they will further highlight the security and strengthen the force, but he did not give the exact number of police officers dispatched to the district so far.

"To guarantee that APEC is safe enough, the new police team of the mountain areas worked hard in the annual two sessions in March and the past National Day holiday. It can work well," he said.

The average age of the dispatched police officers is 35, and all of them are men, he said. "After all, keeping the security and developing inspection in the mountain areas, colder in November than in the downtown part of the city, is hard work. We need those who are good at investigation and are in excellent physical condition."

The district's police have also installed more electronic cameras that can send high-definition images to the sub-bureau in a timely manner, "which will make it easier for us to deal with emergencies," he added.

Zhou Lidong, a police official in the district, said they have set up another "movable security inspection team" with 15 security guards for the APEC Economic Leader's Meeting, on Nov 10 and 11.

The armed team, divided into three groups, has had 24-hour patrols by bicycle since May, hoping to solve cases quickly and improve security, Zhou added.

In the Dongcheng district, at least 1,400 police officers a day have been deployed in busy areas since August, and they have built five major stations in their jurisdiction, including on Wangfujing Street and at the Beijing Railway Station.

"Police dogs are used in patrols in the key sites and places used for the meeting participants' reception," Beijing Evening News quoted Yu Jiang, head of the district's police dog team, as saying.

In July, Fu Zhenghua, chief of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, said that security plans for the APEC meetings have been completed.

"The security arrangements and scale put it on a par with the 2008 Olympics, so we must take it as the top priority," he said.