Law enforcement in the People's Republic of China
Encyclopedia
Law enforcement
in the People's Republic of China
consists of an extensive public security
system and a variety of enforcement procedures are used to maintain order in the country. Along with the courts and procuratorates, the country's judicial and public security agencies included the Ministry of Public Security
and the Ministry of State Security, with their descending hierarchy of departments, bureaus, subbureaus, and stations.
Hong Kong
and Macau
have separate law enforcement agencies and work together with mainland agencies to deal with crime between them.
, the People’s Armed Police, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the state judicial, procuratorial, and penal systems. The Ministry of Public Security oversees all domestic police activity in China, including the People’s Armed Police Force. The ministry is responsible for police operations and prisons and has dedicated departments for internal political, economic, and communications security. Its lowest organizational units are public security stations, which maintain close day-to-day contact with the public. The People’s Armed Police Force, with its 1.5 million personnel, is organized into 45 divisions. These include internal security police, border defense personnel, guards for government buildings and embassies, and police communications specialists.
The Ministry of State Security was established in 1983 to ensure "the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counterrevolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system." The ministry is guided by a series of laws enacted in 1993, 1994, and 1997 that replaced the "counterrevolutionary" crime statutes. The ministry’s operations include intelligence collection, both domestic and foreign. Authorities have used arrests on charges of revealing state secrets, subversion, and common crimes to suppress political dissent and social advocacy.
Security Bureau (Hong Kong)
is the local security department for Hong Kong
. The paramilitary Hong Kong Police Force
was established 1844 and has 27,375 uniformed personnel and 4,885 civilian staff. Hong Kong Correctional Service established 1879 with 6,659 uniformed personnel and civilian staff. Both services report to this Security Bureau.
Secretariat for Security (Macau)
is the local security department in Macau
. Macau Security Force
(established in 1999 by the merger of the Judiciary Police Unitary Police Service, Macau Prisons)is a force of 3,700 personnel and reports to the local Security department.
(NPC) amended the constitution so that for the first time the protection of the individual was incorporated as a constitutional requirement. Specifically, Articles 37 and 38 recognize the "freedom of the person" and the "personal dignity of citizens" as "inviolable."
Although the 1997 Criminal Procedure Law allows the police to detain a person for up to 37 days before release or formal arrest, more vigorous court reviews have led to the release of thousands of unlawfully detained individuals. However, although the law stipulates that the authorities must notify a detainee's family or work unit
of the detention within 24 hours, in practice timely notification is often disregarded, especially in sensitive political cases.
Police sometimes hold individuals without granting access to family members or lawyers, and their trials are sometimes conducted in secret. Detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives are entitled to apply for bail
, but, in practice, few suspects are released pending trial. The reeducation-through-labor system allows nonjudicial panels of police and local civil authorities to sentence individuals to up to three years in prison-like facilities. It has been reported that some detainees, usually political activists or dissidents, have been incarcerated in high-security psychiatric facilities for the criminally insane. Police and prosecutorial officials have been accused of ignoring due process
provisions of the law and constitution.
Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of the right to use their own spoken and written language in court proceedings. Courts and procuratorates are advised by the constitution that they "should provide translations for any party to the court proceedings who is not familiar with the spoken or written languages in common use in the locality." The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the courts are subjected to party and government policy guidance that influences the outcome of verdicts and sentences. Conviction rates in criminal cases in the early 2000s were approximately 90 percent, and trials generally were little more than sentencing hearings. Although most suspects in criminal cases are legally guaranteed the right to counsel
, they often meet their appointed attorney
only once before the hearing; at best, a defense attorney can obtain a reduction of the sentence. In many politically sensitive trials, rarely lasting more than several hours, the courts hand down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings, and death sentences are often implemented within days of the rejection of an appeal.
The legal system in Hong Kong
is based in English
Common law
and remains unchanged for at least 50 years from 1997.
The legal system in Macau
is based in Portuguese
legal system, as well as some aspects of German law, Chinese law
, Italian
law, and some English
common law
. Like Hong Kong, the Macau's legal structure will remain as is for at least 50 years from 1999. Both SARs have separate judicial systems, but the National People's Congress
(NPC) is still the highest legal organ.
is the principal police
authority. The ministry has functional departments for areas such as internal security
, intelligence
, counter-terrorism
, police operations, prisons, and political, economic, and communications security
. Subordinate to the ministry are provincial-level public security departments; public security bureau
s and subbureaus at the county level (the bureaus located in the prefectures and large cities, the subbureaus in counties and municipal districts); and public security stations at the township level.
While public security considerations has a strong influence at all levels of administration, the police appear to wield progressively greater influence at the lower levels of government.
The organization of local public security stations can be inferred from the tasks with which the police are charged. Generally, each station has sections for population control, pre-trial investigations, welfare, traffic control, a detention center, and other activities.
The public security station - the police element in closest contact with the people - is supervised by the public security subbureau as well as by local government
s and procuratorates. The procuratorate assumes direct responsibility for handling any case it chooses, and it supervises investigations in those cases it allows the public security station to conduct. A great deal of coordination occurs among the public security organs, the procuratorates, and the courts, so that a trial
is unlikely to produce a surprise outcome.
The public security station generally has considerably broader responsibilities than a police station in the other countries, involving itself in every aspect of the district people's lives. In a rural area it has a chief, a deputy chief, a small administrative staff, and a small police force. In an urban area it has a greater number of administrative staff members and seven to eighteen patrol
men. Its criminal law activities includes investigation, apprehension, interrogation, and temporary detention. The station's household section maintains a registry of all persons living in the area. Births, deaths, marriages, and divorces are recorded and confirmed through household checks. The station regulates all hotels and requires visitors who remain beyond a certain number of days to register. It also regulates the possession, transportation, and use of all explosives, guns, ammunition, and poisons.
Another important police function is controlling change of residence. Without such controls, larger numbers of rural residents undoubtedly would move to the overcrowded cities in search of better living standards, work, or education (see Urbanization in China
). In April 1984 the State Council issued the "Tentative Regulations Governing People's Republic of China Resident Identity". The regulations, to be implemented over a period of years, required all residents over sixteen years of age, except active-duty members of the PLA and the People's Armed Police and inmates serving sentences, to be issued resident identity cards by the Ministry of Public Security. The picture cards indicated the name, sex, nationality, date of birth, and address of the bearer.
Special police operations employed agents, informers, and spies. Informers are used in surveillance
of suspected criminals.
The criminal laws in force after January 1, 1980, restricted police powers regarding arrests, investigations, and searches. A public security official or a citizen could apprehend a suspect under emergency conditions, but a court or procuratorate was required to approve the arrest. The accused had to be questioned within twenty-four hours and his or her family notified of the detention "except in circumstances where notification would hinder the investigation or there was no way to notify them." Any premeditated arrest required a court or procuratorate warrant. The time that an accused could be held pending investigation was limited to three to seven days, and incarceration without due process is illegal.
Two officials were needed to conduct a criminal investigation. They were required to show identification and to inform the accused of the crime allegedly committed before he or she was questioned. The suspect could refuse to answer only those questions irrelevant to the case. Torture is illegal.
The 1980 laws also provided that in conjunction with an arrest the police could conduct an emergency search; otherwise, a warrant
was required. They had the right to search the person, property, and residence of an accused and the person of any injured party. They could intercept mail belonging to the accused and order an autopsy
whenever cause of death was unclear.
In July 1980 the government approved new regulations governing police use of weapons and force. Police personnel could use their batons only in self-defense or when necessary to subdue or prevent the escape of violent criminals or rioters. Lethal weapons, such as pistols, could be used if necessary to stop violent riot
s, to lessen the overall loss of life, or to subdue surrounded but still resisting criminals. The regulations also governed use of sirens, police lights, and whistles.
The relationship between the police officers assigned to neighborhood patrols and the people is close. Police officers live in a neighborhood on a long-term assignment and are expected to know all the residents personally. Their task is not only to prevent and punish crime but to promote desirable behavior by counseling and acting as role models. This positive side of the police officer's duties was a constant responsibility, and the bond between the public security units and the people are strengthened annually by means of "cherish-the-people" months, during which the police officer makes a special effort to be of help, especially to the aged and the infirm.
The People's Armed Police (PAP) is a paramilitary police force under the authority of the Ministry of Public Security. After a trial period in selected jurisdictions, it was officially established at the national level in 1983. In line with the general policy of reducing the size of the armed forces and transferring responsibilities to the civilian sector, the newly established force was formed from internal security units reassigned from the PLA to the Ministry of Public Security and from border defense (customs
) and fire-fighting units. In 1985 the PAP consisted of approximately 600,000 volunteers and conscripts. With a general headquarters at the national level and subordinate division-level provincial or specialized units, regimental-level detachments, and battalion-level brigades, it retained its military organization.
PAP units assigned to internal security were responsible for guarding party and state organizations and foreign embassies and consulates, as well as for responding to emergencies and maintaining law and order
. Border defense units performed standard customs duties, such as inspecting vehicles and ships entering and leaving the country, and maintained surveillance
against smugglers and drug traffickers. PAP firefighting units were responsible for fire-prevention education as well as for fighting fires. PAP units at every level worked in close cooperation with the armed forces and other public security organizations.
more or less act as local (provincial and municipal) police forces. There are no independent forces similar to those in Europe
and North America
in China
(excluding Hong Kong Police and Macau Security Force
, which are modelled after European police forces).
In recent years the PSB have shed their paramilitary image towards becoming a professional police service. Green military uniforms have given way to black and white. Standard IDs (similar to warrant cards or badges) are being used to identify officers.
The PSB's alternate English name has been re-defined as China Police.
. More modern fleets sport a North American
influence.
Hong Kong Police vehicles have been influenced by British schemes and still today retain them. Police in Macau
use generic European designs patterns.
system may have been influenced by communist ideology and practice, it remained rooted directly in the traditional Chinese concept of governmental control through imposed collective responsibility. Even in the pre-imperial era, a system was proposed to organize the people into "groups of families which would be mutually responsible for each other's good behavior and share each other's punishments." The Qin
(221-207 BCE) and Han
(206 BCE-CE 220) dynasties made use of the concept, and the Song dynasty
(960-1279) institutionalized it on a nationwide basis in the bao jia (tithing) system. It entailed the organization of family households into groups of ten, each unit being organized successively into a larger unit up to the county level of administration. Each family sent a representative to the monthly meeting of its unit, and each unit elected a leader to represent it at the next higher level. Since the head of each unit was responsible to the next higher level for the conduct of all members of his unit, the system served as an extension of the central government. Eventually, each group of families also was required to furnish men to serve in the militia
. Bao jia, which alternately flourished or languished under later rulers and usually existed more in theory than in practice, was reinstituted during the Qing dynasty
(1644–1911).
During the Qing period, the people's aversion to legalistic procedures
and the rulers' preferences for socially and collectively imposed sanctions continued. Technically, the magistrate
was to hear even minor criminal cases; but local elders
and village leaders were allowed to handle most disputes, freeing the magistrate for more important work and saving the government expense. The people preferred to handle matters in this way, outside the intimidating court system.
Other practices for maintaining public order in China during the imperial era included the formation of mutual aid groups of farm households, which over time came to assume police functions. In a manner similar to twentieth-century means of ideological control, the Qing bureaucracy organized mass lectures that stressed the Confucian principle of obedience. Still another traditional form of policing was the appointment of censors to investigate corruption
and misconduct
up to the highest levels of government. Doing that job too well cost many censors their lives.
In 1932 Chiang Kai-shek
's Guomindang government reinstituted the bao jia system. In the Guomindang's revised bao jia system, in addition to the chief, there were two officers of importance within each 100-family unit. The population officer maintained the records and reported all births, deaths, marriages, moves, and unlawful activities to the district office. The bao jia troop commander headed a self-defense unit and was responsible for maintaining law and order. In rural China, however, the local village was generally a self-contained world, and the peasants remained aloof from distant and higher-ranking centers of authority.
The Japanese were introduced to the bao jia system on Taiwan
when they assumed control of the island after the Sino-Japanese War
(1894–95), and they found the system highly suitable for administering occupied areas. They instituted modified versions of it in north China after 1937. The Japanese imposed severe restrictions on the population, and the system aided in taking the census
, restricting movement, and conducting spot checks. Each household had to affix a wooden tablet on the front door with the names of all inhabitants inscribed. Anyone missing or not on the list during an inspection by Japanese troops was assumed to be an insurgent
. Since there were not as many Japanese troops in south China as in the north, the local leaders assisted the Japanese in administering the areas. They also disseminated propaganda at neighborhood meetings and established self-defense and youth corps.
The Communists were themselves products of Chinese society, and when they came to power in 1949 they liberally borrowed from these historical examples. They extensively organized the population and maintained the principles of mutual surveillance and mutual responsibility. They also retained the concept of self-defense forces. Communist control, however, exceeded that of bao jia or any other traditional system and extended into virtually every household. Under communist rule, the family was not considered an effective control mechanism. To achieve near-total control, a large number of administrative agencies and social organizations were established or adapted. Police forces resembling the Soviet police in organization, power, and activities were organized with the aid of Soviet advisers.
From 1949 to 1953, the newly established government of the People's Republic made use of the PLA, militia units made up of demobilized soldiers and other civilians, the police, and loyal citizens to put down resistance and establish order. Remnants of the Guomindang armed forces remained in pockets on the mainland, and communist efforts to enforce tax laws and agricultural rules provoked disturbances and riots. Extending responsibility for public order to include the police, military, and citizenry proved to be a highly effective arrangement, and the concept was written into the Common Program that preceded the 1954 state constitution.
The PLA and the militia continued to share responsibility for internal security
and public order under the 1954 state constitution. The PLA's involvement in internal affairs
was most extensive during the more turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution
(1966–76). Mao Zedong
, perceiving that the public security cadres were protecting precisely the party leaders he wished to purge, directed youthful Red Guards
to crush the police, courts, and procuratorates as well. The minister of public security, Luo Ruiqing
(who concurrently served as the chief of staff of the PLA), was purged, soon followed by heads of the courts and procuratorates.
Initially, the military tried to remain uninvolved. But on Mao's orders, the PLA, which had once been told to support (actually to acquiesce to) the Red Guards, moved in to quell the chaos that Mao had inspired. The PLA gradually took over public security functions by establishing military control committees to replace the government bureaucracy. Revolutionary committees were set up as provincial-level and local administrative organs, usually with a PLA cadre in charge, and order gradually returned. By the summer of 1968 the Red Guards were being disbanded, and mass trials were used to punish and intimidate rioters.
With nineteen of China's twenty-nine provincial-level people's revolutionary committees headed by PLA commanders, the military again was in charge of administration and security throughout the country, but it badly needed help from experienced police officer
s. A policy of leniency toward most former officials evolved, and some public security cadres returned to work. The PLA also recruited inexperienced people to form auxiliary police
units. These units were mass organizations with a variety of names reflecting their factional orientation. Perhaps the best known unit was the "Attack with Reason, Defend with Force Corps" named for the militant slogan of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing
. Public security forces were composed largely of non-professional
s and lacked the disciplined informant
networks and personnel dossiers previously used to maintain order.
Beginning in 1968, the authorities called upon the PLA to help remove millions of urban dwellers from the overcrowded cities and relocate them to the countryside and to transport cashiered officials to special cadre schools for indoctrination and labor. The migration to the country mostly involved students and other youths for whom there were not enough jobs or places in the school system within the cities. Yet despite the discontent these campaigns caused, reported crime
declined after 1970. Increased concern over the threat from the Soviet Union
in the wake of armed clashes on the Sino-Soviet border in 1969
forced the PLA gradually to return to barracks, and control of the country reverted to the civilian leadership.
The Beijing-based Central Security Regiment
, also known as the 8341 Unit, was an important PLA law enforcement element. It was responsible over the years for the personal security of Mao Zedong
and other party and state leaders. More than a bodyguard
force, it also operated a nationwide intelligence
network to uncover plots against Mao or any incipient threat to the leadership. The unit reportedly was deeply involved in undercover
activities, discovering electronic listening devices in Mao's office and performing surveillance of his rivals. The 8341 Unit participated in the late 1976 arrest of the Gang of Four
, but it reportedly was deactivated soon after that event.
The militia also participated in maintaining public order in the 1970s. Their involvement was especially evident in the 1973-76 period. In 1973 the Gang of Four, concerned over the transformation of the PLA into a more professional, less political, military force, took control of the urban militia from the PLA and placed it under local party committees loyal to them. For the next three years, the urban militia was used extensively to enforce radical political and social policies. It was the urban militia, along with the public security forces, that broke up the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square honoring the memory of Zhou Enlai
in April 1976 — the event that served as the pretext for the second purge of Deng Xiaoping
. At the time, in rural areas the militia was more under the control of the PLA.
Public security officials also made extensive use of the authority granted them to impose administrative sanctions by two sets of documents. These were the 1957 Regulations on Reeducation Through Labor
, which were reissued in 1979 with amendments, and the 1957 Regulations Governing Offenses Against Public Order, which were rescinded and replaced in 1986 by regulations of the same name. Offenders under the Regulations on Reeducation Through Labor might include "vagabonds, people who have no proper occupation, and people who repeatedly breach public order." The police could apprehend such individuals and sentence them to reeducation through labor with the approval of local labor-training administration committees. The 1957 regulations placed no limit on the length of sentences, but beginning in the early 1960s three or four years was the norm. The 1979 amended regulations, however, limited the length of reeducation through labor to three years with possible extension for extraordinary cases. The Regulations Governing Offenses Against Public Order empowered the police to admonish, fine, or detain people for up to fifteen days. Goods illegally in the possession of an offender were to be confiscated, and payment was imposed for damages or hospital fees in the event injury had been caused.
Before the reform era, aspects of Chinese society also contributed to shaping the contemporary structure for maintaining public order. During the beginning of the 1980s economic reforms
, urban and rural dwellers rarely changed their residences. Amid the sprawling cities, neighborhoods remained closeknit communities. For the 80 percent of the population that lived in the countryside, home and place of work were the same. With little physical mobility, most villagers stayed put for generations and knew each other intimately. In such close-knit environments, where everyone was likely to know everyone else and noticed most of what happened, mutual surveillance and peer pressure was extremely effective.
The structure of the public security system remained extensive in the 1980s, and the authority of its forces exceeded that of most police forces in the West. Nevertheless, public security agencies required and received the assistance of a wide-ranging network of grass-roots organizations to mobilize residents' responses to the government's call for observance of laws, lead the people in maintaining social order and public security, and settle disputes among residents.
In urban areas an average of 11 patrolmen were responsible for controlling an area containing 15,000 or more residents. A patrolman could not know all the people and their particular problems, and therefore needed and enlisted help. The local people's governments and congresses shared responsibility for public order but had no special personnel for the task. The armed forces
were available, but they had other primary concerns and would be called out only in the most extreme circumstances.
To provide security beyond what could be provided by the police and to extend government control, a system of neighborhood or street committees had been established on a nationwide basis in 1954. The committees were charged with the responsibility of assisting the government in maintaining order. They usually controlled from 10,000 to 20,000 people and consisted of 3 to 7 full-time officials. In the late 1970s, the size and functions of neighborhood committees were expanded. The neighborhood committees were specifically responsible for maintaining public order and were accountable to the local people's congress.
Residents' committees and residents' "small groups," also established in 1954, were subordinate to neighborhood committees. These were the genuine grass-roots organizations, staffed by unpaid local residents elected by their neighbors. They directly involved the people in controlling their neighborhoods, and they reduced the demands on formal state institutions by maintaining surveillance for the public security forces and mediating most civil disputes and minor criminal cases for the judiciary
. A residents' committee supervised from 100 to 600 families with a staff of 7 to 17 members, one from each subordinate residents' small group. A residents' small group controlled fifteen to forty households. The public security organization in the countryside was also pervasive. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, it was structured along military lines. The people's commune
was the lowest level of government organization, with its administrative committee on a legal par with the local people's government in the urban areas. People's communes were subdivided into production brigades and production teams. Each team elected a people's public security committee, which sent a representative to the committee at the brigade level. Physical control was mostly the responsibility of the militia
units organized at the team, brigade, and commune levels. In the winter of 1982-83 communes were replaced by township governments, and grass-roots committees were patterned after urban committees. These rural grass-roots committees were given legal status by the Draft Organic Regulations for Villagers' Committees approved by the National People's Congress
in April 1987.
Residents' committees and small groups were staffed originally by housewives and retired persons but involved others as their functions expanded. Their pervasive presence made them a primary means for disseminating propaganda, and their grass-roots nature allowed for effective use of peer pressure in mediating disputes and controlling troublemakers. Perhaps 4 or 5 percent of the adult population exercised some authority in what Western experts have described as "participatory democracy in an extended form." The functional subunits, the residents' committees and residents' small groups, were particularly important in controlling the people.
People's mediation
committees, guided and supervised jointly by the basic people's court and the public security station, performed an important function within the residents' committees. They settled minor disputes and disagreements using conciliation
and peer pressure
. Mediation committees were established originally in communist areas during the Chinese Civil War
(1945–49) as a natural outgrowth of traditional preferences for local mediation of disputes. Upon taking over the major cities of China in 1949, the Communists were confronted with a tremendous backlog of judicial cases. Mediation committees provided a means of resolving disputes while actively propagandizing and involving the people in the new government. Beginning in 1954 mediation committees were set up in neighborhoods, stores, schools, enterprises, factories, and workshops in the cities and in the production brigades and teams in the countryside.
In the 1980s the five- to eleven-member people's mediation committees were elected by popular vote to two-year terms with the option of being reelected. Members served without pay and could be removed at any time by the electors for dereliction of duty. They were responsible for settling disputes, strengthening popular unity, promoting production and order, and conducting propaganda activities. Parties in dispute came voluntarily to the mediation committee; people seemed to feel they should try mediation before proceeding to a lawsuit
. Mediators' duties ranged from acting as go-betweens for parties who refused to talk to one another to defining issues, deciding questions of fact, and issuing tentative or advisory
decisions. Mediation committees also exerted strong political, economic, social, and moral pressures upon one or both parties to gain "voluntary" compliance with the decisions. In addition to mediation committees, other officials, police officers, party members, and work supervisors were expected to serve as mediators. Members of the residents' committees and small groups who were not members of the mediation committees were also involved in the mediation process.
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
consists of an extensive public security
Public security
To meet the increasing challenges in the public security area, responsible public institutions and organisations can tap into their own intelligence to successfully address possible threats in advance...
system and a variety of enforcement procedures are used to maintain order in the country. Along with the courts and procuratorates, the country's judicial and public security agencies included the Ministry of Public Security
Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Public Security , is the principal police and security authority of the mainland of the People's Republic of China and the government agency that exercises oversight over and is ultimately responsible for day-to-day law enforcement...
and the Ministry of State Security, with their descending hierarchy of departments, bureaus, subbureaus, and stations.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
have separate law enforcement agencies and work together with mainland agencies to deal with crime between them.
Overview
The national security system is made up of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public SecurityMinistry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Public Security , is the principal police and security authority of the mainland of the People's Republic of China and the government agency that exercises oversight over and is ultimately responsible for day-to-day law enforcement...
, the People’s Armed Police, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the state judicial, procuratorial, and penal systems. The Ministry of Public Security oversees all domestic police activity in China, including the People’s Armed Police Force. The ministry is responsible for police operations and prisons and has dedicated departments for internal political, economic, and communications security. Its lowest organizational units are public security stations, which maintain close day-to-day contact with the public. The People’s Armed Police Force, with its 1.5 million personnel, is organized into 45 divisions. These include internal security police, border defense personnel, guards for government buildings and embassies, and police communications specialists.
The Ministry of State Security was established in 1983 to ensure "the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counterrevolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system." The ministry is guided by a series of laws enacted in 1993, 1994, and 1997 that replaced the "counterrevolutionary" crime statutes. The ministry’s operations include intelligence collection, both domestic and foreign. Authorities have used arrests on charges of revealing state secrets, subversion, and common crimes to suppress political dissent and social advocacy.
Security Bureau (Hong Kong)
Security Bureau (Hong Kong)
The Security Bureau is a body of the Government of Hong Kong responsible for a range of activities, including law enforcement, search and rescue and administer various laws in relation to the security of Hong Kong....
is the local security department for Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. The paramilitary Hong Kong Police Force
Hong Kong Police Force
The Hong Kong Police Force is the largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. It is the world's second, and Asia's first, police agency to operate with a modern policing system. It was formed on 1 May 1844, with a strength of 32 officers...
was established 1844 and has 27,375 uniformed personnel and 4,885 civilian staff. Hong Kong Correctional Service established 1879 with 6,659 uniformed personnel and civilian staff. Both services report to this Security Bureau.
Secretariat for Security (Macau)
Secretariat for Security (Macau)
The Secretariat for Security is the government department responsible for public safety and security in Macau. The role replaced the former post of Secretary for Public Security...
is the local security department in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
. Macau Security Force
Macau Security Force
The Macau Security Force is Macau's public security body under the Secretariat for Security, responsible for handling government activities ranging from law enforcement to public safety.-History:...
(established in 1999 by the merger of the Judiciary Police Unitary Police Service, Macau Prisons)is a force of 3,700 personnel and reports to the local Security department.
Judicial and legal system
In 2004 the National People's CongressNational People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...
(NPC) amended the constitution so that for the first time the protection of the individual was incorporated as a constitutional requirement. Specifically, Articles 37 and 38 recognize the "freedom of the person" and the "personal dignity of citizens" as "inviolable."
Although the 1997 Criminal Procedure Law allows the police to detain a person for up to 37 days before release or formal arrest, more vigorous court reviews have led to the release of thousands of unlawfully detained individuals. However, although the law stipulates that the authorities must notify a detainee's family or work unit
Work unit
A work unit or danwei is the name given to a place of employment in the People's Republic of China. While the term danwei remains in use today it is more properly used to refer to a place of employment during the period when the Chinese economy was still more heavily socialist or when used in the...
of the detention within 24 hours, in practice timely notification is often disregarded, especially in sensitive political cases.
Police sometimes hold individuals without granting access to family members or lawyers, and their trials are sometimes conducted in secret. Detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives are entitled to apply for bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
, but, in practice, few suspects are released pending trial. The reeducation-through-labor system allows nonjudicial panels of police and local civil authorities to sentence individuals to up to three years in prison-like facilities. It has been reported that some detainees, usually political activists or dissidents, have been incarcerated in high-security psychiatric facilities for the criminally insane. Police and prosecutorial officials have been accused of ignoring due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
provisions of the law and constitution.
Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of the right to use their own spoken and written language in court proceedings. Courts and procuratorates are advised by the constitution that they "should provide translations for any party to the court proceedings who is not familiar with the spoken or written languages in common use in the locality." The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the courts are subjected to party and government policy guidance that influences the outcome of verdicts and sentences. Conviction rates in criminal cases in the early 2000s were approximately 90 percent, and trials generally were little more than sentencing hearings. Although most suspects in criminal cases are legally guaranteed the right to counsel
Right to counsel
Right to counsel is currently generally regarded as a constituent of the right to a fair trial, allowing for the defendant to be assisted by counsel , and if he cannot afford his own lawyer, requiring that the government should appoint one for him/her, or pay his/her legal expenses...
, they often meet their appointed attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
only once before the hearing; at best, a defense attorney can obtain a reduction of the sentence. In many politically sensitive trials, rarely lasting more than several hours, the courts hand down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings, and death sentences are often implemented within days of the rejection of an appeal.
The legal system in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
is based in English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
and remains unchanged for at least 50 years from 1997.
The legal system in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
is based in Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
legal system, as well as some aspects of German law, Chinese law
Chinese law
Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. In the 20th and 21st century, law in China has been a complex mix of traditional Chinese approaches and Western influences....
, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
law, and some English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
. Like Hong Kong, the Macau's legal structure will remain as is for at least 50 years from 1999. Both SARs have separate judicial systems, but the National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...
(NPC) is still the highest legal organ.
Organization and role
The Ministry of Public SecurityMinistry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Public Security , is the principal police and security authority of the mainland of the People's Republic of China and the government agency that exercises oversight over and is ultimately responsible for day-to-day law enforcement...
is the principal police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
authority. The ministry has functional departments for areas such as internal security
Internal security
Internal security, or IS, is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other self-governing territories. generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats...
, intelligence
Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
, counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...
, police operations, prisons, and political, economic, and communications security
Communications security
Communications security is the discipline of preventing unauthorized interceptors from accessing telecommunications in an intelligible form, while still delivering content to the intended recipients. In the United States Department of Defense culture, it is often referred to by the abbreviation...
. Subordinate to the ministry are provincial-level public security departments; public security bureau
Public Security Bureau
In the People's Republic of China, a public security bureau refers to the government offices while the smaller offices are called Police posts which are similar in concept to the Japanese Kōban system) present in each province and municipality that handles policing , public security, and...
s and subbureaus at the county level (the bureaus located in the prefectures and large cities, the subbureaus in counties and municipal districts); and public security stations at the township level.
While public security considerations has a strong influence at all levels of administration, the police appear to wield progressively greater influence at the lower levels of government.
The organization of local public security stations can be inferred from the tasks with which the police are charged. Generally, each station has sections for population control, pre-trial investigations, welfare, traffic control, a detention center, and other activities.
The public security station - the police element in closest contact with the people - is supervised by the public security subbureau as well as by local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
s and procuratorates. The procuratorate assumes direct responsibility for handling any case it chooses, and it supervises investigations in those cases it allows the public security station to conduct. A great deal of coordination occurs among the public security organs, the procuratorates, and the courts, so that a trial
Trial
A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...
is unlikely to produce a surprise outcome.
The public security station generally has considerably broader responsibilities than a police station in the other countries, involving itself in every aspect of the district people's lives. In a rural area it has a chief, a deputy chief, a small administrative staff, and a small police force. In an urban area it has a greater number of administrative staff members and seven to eighteen patrol
Patrol
A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as police officers or soldiers, that are assigned to monitor a specific geographic area.- Military :...
men. Its criminal law activities includes investigation, apprehension, interrogation, and temporary detention. The station's household section maintains a registry of all persons living in the area. Births, deaths, marriages, and divorces are recorded and confirmed through household checks. The station regulates all hotels and requires visitors who remain beyond a certain number of days to register. It also regulates the possession, transportation, and use of all explosives, guns, ammunition, and poisons.
Another important police function is controlling change of residence. Without such controls, larger numbers of rural residents undoubtedly would move to the overcrowded cities in search of better living standards, work, or education (see Urbanization in China
Urbanization in China
Urbanization in the People's Republic of China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening policy. By the end of 2010, the mainland of the People's Republic of China had a total urban population of 665.57 million or 49.68 percent of the total population.The rural-to-urban...
). In April 1984 the State Council issued the "Tentative Regulations Governing People's Republic of China Resident Identity". The regulations, to be implemented over a period of years, required all residents over sixteen years of age, except active-duty members of the PLA and the People's Armed Police and inmates serving sentences, to be issued resident identity cards by the Ministry of Public Security. The picture cards indicated the name, sex, nationality, date of birth, and address of the bearer.
Special police operations employed agents, informers, and spies. Informers are used in surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
of suspected criminals.
The criminal laws in force after January 1, 1980, restricted police powers regarding arrests, investigations, and searches. A public security official or a citizen could apprehend a suspect under emergency conditions, but a court or procuratorate was required to approve the arrest. The accused had to be questioned within twenty-four hours and his or her family notified of the detention "except in circumstances where notification would hinder the investigation or there was no way to notify them." Any premeditated arrest required a court or procuratorate warrant. The time that an accused could be held pending investigation was limited to three to seven days, and incarceration without due process is illegal.
Two officials were needed to conduct a criminal investigation. They were required to show identification and to inform the accused of the crime allegedly committed before he or she was questioned. The suspect could refuse to answer only those questions irrelevant to the case. Torture is illegal.
The 1980 laws also provided that in conjunction with an arrest the police could conduct an emergency search; otherwise, a warrant
Warrant (law)
Most often, the term warrant refers to a specific type of authorization; a writ issued by a competent officer, usually a judge or magistrate, which permits an otherwise illegal act that would violate individual rights and affords the person executing the writ protection from damages if the act is...
was required. They had the right to search the person, property, and residence of an accused and the person of any injured party. They could intercept mail belonging to the accused and order an autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
whenever cause of death was unclear.
In July 1980 the government approved new regulations governing police use of weapons and force. Police personnel could use their batons only in self-defense or when necessary to subdue or prevent the escape of violent criminals or rioters. Lethal weapons, such as pistols, could be used if necessary to stop violent riot
Riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...
s, to lessen the overall loss of life, or to subdue surrounded but still resisting criminals. The regulations also governed use of sirens, police lights, and whistles.
The relationship between the police officers assigned to neighborhood patrols and the people is close. Police officers live in a neighborhood on a long-term assignment and are expected to know all the residents personally. Their task is not only to prevent and punish crime but to promote desirable behavior by counseling and acting as role models. This positive side of the police officer's duties was a constant responsibility, and the bond between the public security units and the people are strengthened annually by means of "cherish-the-people" months, during which the police officer makes a special effort to be of help, especially to the aged and the infirm.
People's Armed Police
The People's Armed Police (PAP) is a paramilitary police force under the authority of the Ministry of Public Security. After a trial period in selected jurisdictions, it was officially established at the national level in 1983. In line with the general policy of reducing the size of the armed forces and transferring responsibilities to the civilian sector, the newly established force was formed from internal security units reassigned from the PLA to the Ministry of Public Security and from border defense (customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
) and fire-fighting units. In 1985 the PAP consisted of approximately 600,000 volunteers and conscripts. With a general headquarters at the national level and subordinate division-level provincial or specialized units, regimental-level detachments, and battalion-level brigades, it retained its military organization.
PAP units assigned to internal security were responsible for guarding party and state organizations and foreign embassies and consulates, as well as for responding to emergencies and maintaining law and order
Law and order (politics)
In politics, law and order refers to demands for a strict criminal justice system, especially in relation to violent and property crime, through harsher criminal penalties...
. Border defense units performed standard customs duties, such as inspecting vehicles and ships entering and leaving the country, and maintained surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
against smugglers and drug traffickers. PAP firefighting units were responsible for fire-prevention education as well as for fighting fires. PAP units at every level worked in close cooperation with the armed forces and other public security organizations.
Local Police
Public security bureauPublic Security Bureau
In the People's Republic of China, a public security bureau refers to the government offices while the smaller offices are called Police posts which are similar in concept to the Japanese Kōban system) present in each province and municipality that handles policing , public security, and...
more or less act as local (provincial and municipal) police forces. There are no independent forces similar to those in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(excluding Hong Kong Police and Macau Security Force
Macau Security Force
The Macau Security Force is Macau's public security body under the Secretariat for Security, responsible for handling government activities ranging from law enforcement to public safety.-History:...
, which are modelled after European police forces).
In recent years the PSB have shed their paramilitary image towards becoming a professional police service. Green military uniforms have given way to black and white. Standard IDs (similar to warrant cards or badges) are being used to identify officers.
The PSB's alternate English name has been re-defined as China Police.
Police vehicles
Police cars in China have variation of black and white scheme similar to Japan, in that the top half of the car is painted white, and the bottom half is black. Similar color schemes are also used by departments in TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. More modern fleets sport a North American
North American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
influence.
Hong Kong Police vehicles have been influenced by British schemes and still today retain them. Police in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
use generic European designs patterns.
Historical background
However much the public securityPublic security
To meet the increasing challenges in the public security area, responsible public institutions and organisations can tap into their own intelligence to successfully address possible threats in advance...
system may have been influenced by communist ideology and practice, it remained rooted directly in the traditional Chinese concept of governmental control through imposed collective responsibility. Even in the pre-imperial era, a system was proposed to organize the people into "groups of families which would be mutually responsible for each other's good behavior and share each other's punishments." The Qin
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
(221-207 BCE) and Han
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
(206 BCE-CE 220) dynasties made use of the concept, and the Song dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
(960-1279) institutionalized it on a nationwide basis in the bao jia (tithing) system. It entailed the organization of family households into groups of ten, each unit being organized successively into a larger unit up to the county level of administration. Each family sent a representative to the monthly meeting of its unit, and each unit elected a leader to represent it at the next higher level. Since the head of each unit was responsible to the next higher level for the conduct of all members of his unit, the system served as an extension of the central government. Eventually, each group of families also was required to furnish men to serve in the militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
. Bao jia, which alternately flourished or languished under later rulers and usually existed more in theory than in practice, was reinstituted during the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
(1644–1911).
During the Qing period, the people's aversion to legalistic procedures
Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
In Chinese history, Legalism was one of the main philosophic currents during the Warring States Period, although the term itself was invented in the Han Dynasty and thus does not refer to an organized 'school' of thought....
and the rulers' preferences for socially and collectively imposed sanctions continued. Technically, the magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
was to hear even minor criminal cases; but local elders
Elder (administrative title)
The term Elder is used in several different countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority...
and village leaders were allowed to handle most disputes, freeing the magistrate for more important work and saving the government expense. The people preferred to handle matters in this way, outside the intimidating court system.
Other practices for maintaining public order in China during the imperial era included the formation of mutual aid groups of farm households, which over time came to assume police functions. In a manner similar to twentieth-century means of ideological control, the Qing bureaucracy organized mass lectures that stressed the Confucian principle of obedience. Still another traditional form of policing was the appointment of censors to investigate corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
and misconduct
Misconduct
A misconduct is a legal term meaning a wrongful, improper, or unlawful conduct motivated by premeditated or intentional purpose or by obstinate indifference to the consequences of one's acts....
up to the highest levels of government. Doing that job too well cost many censors their lives.
In 1932 Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
's Guomindang government reinstituted the bao jia system. In the Guomindang's revised bao jia system, in addition to the chief, there were two officers of importance within each 100-family unit. The population officer maintained the records and reported all births, deaths, marriages, moves, and unlawful activities to the district office. The bao jia troop commander headed a self-defense unit and was responsible for maintaining law and order. In rural China, however, the local village was generally a self-contained world, and the peasants remained aloof from distant and higher-ranking centers of authority.
The Japanese were introduced to the bao jia system on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
when they assumed control of the island after the Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...
(1894–95), and they found the system highly suitable for administering occupied areas. They instituted modified versions of it in north China after 1937. The Japanese imposed severe restrictions on the population, and the system aided in taking the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
, restricting movement, and conducting spot checks. Each household had to affix a wooden tablet on the front door with the names of all inhabitants inscribed. Anyone missing or not on the list during an inspection by Japanese troops was assumed to be an insurgent
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
. Since there were not as many Japanese troops in south China as in the north, the local leaders assisted the Japanese in administering the areas. They also disseminated propaganda at neighborhood meetings and established self-defense and youth corps.
The Communists were themselves products of Chinese society, and when they came to power in 1949 they liberally borrowed from these historical examples. They extensively organized the population and maintained the principles of mutual surveillance and mutual responsibility. They also retained the concept of self-defense forces. Communist control, however, exceeded that of bao jia or any other traditional system and extended into virtually every household. Under communist rule, the family was not considered an effective control mechanism. To achieve near-total control, a large number of administrative agencies and social organizations were established or adapted. Police forces resembling the Soviet police in organization, power, and activities were organized with the aid of Soviet advisers.
From 1949 to 1953, the newly established government of the People's Republic made use of the PLA, militia units made up of demobilized soldiers and other civilians, the police, and loyal citizens to put down resistance and establish order. Remnants of the Guomindang armed forces remained in pockets on the mainland, and communist efforts to enforce tax laws and agricultural rules provoked disturbances and riots. Extending responsibility for public order to include the police, military, and citizenry proved to be a highly effective arrangement, and the concept was written into the Common Program that preceded the 1954 state constitution.
The PLA and the militia continued to share responsibility for internal security
Internal security
Internal security, or IS, is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other self-governing territories. generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats...
and public order under the 1954 state constitution. The PLA's involvement in internal affairs
Internal affairs (law enforcement)
The internal affairs division of a law enforcement agency investigates incidents and plausible suspicions of lawbreaking and professional misconduct attributed to officers on the force...
was most extensive during the more turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
(1966–76). Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
, perceiving that the public security cadres were protecting precisely the party leaders he wished to purge, directed youthful Red Guards
Red Guards (China)
Red Guards were a mass movement of civilians, mostly students and other young people in the People's Republic of China , who were mobilized by Mao Zedong in 1966 and 1967, during the Cultural Revolution.-Origins:...
to crush the police, courts, and procuratorates as well. The minister of public security, Luo Ruiqing
Luo Ruiqing
-Biography:Luo Ruiqing was born in Nanchong, Sichuan in 1906. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1928. He was the eldest son of a wealthy landlord named Luo Chunting , who had a total of six kids...
(who concurrently served as the chief of staff of the PLA), was purged, soon followed by heads of the courts and procuratorates.
Initially, the military tried to remain uninvolved. But on Mao's orders, the PLA, which had once been told to support (actually to acquiesce to) the Red Guards, moved in to quell the chaos that Mao had inspired. The PLA gradually took over public security functions by establishing military control committees to replace the government bureaucracy. Revolutionary committees were set up as provincial-level and local administrative organs, usually with a PLA cadre in charge, and order gradually returned. By the summer of 1968 the Red Guards were being disbanded, and mass trials were used to punish and intimidate rioters.
With nineteen of China's twenty-nine provincial-level people's revolutionary committees headed by PLA commanders, the military again was in charge of administration and security throughout the country, but it badly needed help from experienced police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s. A policy of leniency toward most former officials evolved, and some public security cadres returned to work. The PLA also recruited inexperienced people to form auxiliary police
Auxiliary police
Auxiliary police or special constables in England) are usually the part-time reserves of a regular police force. They may be armed or unarmed. They may be unpaid volunteers or paid members of the police service with which they are affiliated...
units. These units were mass organizations with a variety of names reflecting their factional orientation. Perhaps the best known unit was the "Attack with Reason, Defend with Force Corps" named for the militant slogan of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing was the pseudonym that was used by Chinese leader Mao Zedong's last wife and major Communist Party of China power figure. She went by the stage name Lan Ping during her acting career, and was known by various other names during her life...
. Public security forces were composed largely of non-professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
s and lacked the disciplined informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
networks and personnel dossiers previously used to maintain order.
Beginning in 1968, the authorities called upon the PLA to help remove millions of urban dwellers from the overcrowded cities and relocate them to the countryside and to transport cashiered officials to special cadre schools for indoctrination and labor. The migration to the country mostly involved students and other youths for whom there were not enough jobs or places in the school system within the cities. Yet despite the discontent these campaigns caused, reported crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
declined after 1970. Increased concern over the threat from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in the wake of armed clashes on the Sino-Soviet border in 1969
Sino-Soviet border conflict
The Sino–Soviet border conflict was a seven-month military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino–Soviet split in 1969. The most serious of these border clashes occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River, also known as Damanskii...
forced the PLA gradually to return to barracks, and control of the country reverted to the civilian leadership.
The Beijing-based Central Security Regiment
Central Guard Unit
The Central Security Bureau or The Central Guard Unit is the chief Security Detail military bureau responsible for the security of senior Chinese government, party, and military leaders.-History:Activated in 1949, in Xibaipo, Hebei, the bureau is an...
, also known as the 8341 Unit, was an important PLA law enforcement element. It was responsible over the years for the personal security of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
and other party and state leaders. More than a bodyguard
Bodyguard
A bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...
force, it also operated a nationwide intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
network to uncover plots against Mao or any incipient threat to the leadership. The unit reportedly was deeply involved in undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
activities, discovering electronic listening devices in Mao's office and performing surveillance of his rivals. The 8341 Unit participated in the late 1976 arrest of the Gang of Four
Gang of Four
The Gang of Four was the name given to a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution and were subsequently charged with a series of treasonous crimes...
, but it reportedly was deactivated soon after that event.
The militia also participated in maintaining public order in the 1970s. Their involvement was especially evident in the 1973-76 period. In 1973 the Gang of Four, concerned over the transformation of the PLA into a more professional, less political, military force, took control of the urban militia from the PLA and placed it under local party committees loyal to them. For the next three years, the urban militia was used extensively to enforce radical political and social policies. It was the urban militia, along with the public security forces, that broke up the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square honoring the memory of Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
in April 1976 — the event that served as the pretext for the second purge of Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
. At the time, in rural areas the militia was more under the control of the PLA.
Public security officials also made extensive use of the authority granted them to impose administrative sanctions by two sets of documents. These were the 1957 Regulations on Reeducation Through Labor
Reeducation through labor
Re-education through labor , abbreviated is a system of administrative detentions in the People's Republic of China which is generally used to detain persons for minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and trafficking illegal drugs, as well as religious or political dissidents such as...
, which were reissued in 1979 with amendments, and the 1957 Regulations Governing Offenses Against Public Order, which were rescinded and replaced in 1986 by regulations of the same name. Offenders under the Regulations on Reeducation Through Labor might include "vagabonds, people who have no proper occupation, and people who repeatedly breach public order." The police could apprehend such individuals and sentence them to reeducation through labor with the approval of local labor-training administration committees. The 1957 regulations placed no limit on the length of sentences, but beginning in the early 1960s three or four years was the norm. The 1979 amended regulations, however, limited the length of reeducation through labor to three years with possible extension for extraordinary cases. The Regulations Governing Offenses Against Public Order empowered the police to admonish, fine, or detain people for up to fifteen days. Goods illegally in the possession of an offender were to be confiscated, and payment was imposed for damages or hospital fees in the event injury had been caused.
History of grass-roots organizations
Neighborhood committees in the 1980s continued to be heavily involved in law enforcement and mediation of disputes at the local level. Among the enforcement procedures these committees used to influence both thought and behavior were criticism and collective responsibility.Before the reform era, aspects of Chinese society also contributed to shaping the contemporary structure for maintaining public order. During the beginning of the 1980s economic reforms
Chinese economic reform
The Chinese economic reform refers to the program of economic reforms called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" in the People's Republic of China that were started in December 1978 by reformists within the Communist Party of China led by Deng Xiaoping.China had one of the world's largest...
, urban and rural dwellers rarely changed their residences. Amid the sprawling cities, neighborhoods remained closeknit communities. For the 80 percent of the population that lived in the countryside, home and place of work were the same. With little physical mobility, most villagers stayed put for generations and knew each other intimately. In such close-knit environments, where everyone was likely to know everyone else and noticed most of what happened, mutual surveillance and peer pressure was extremely effective.
The structure of the public security system remained extensive in the 1980s, and the authority of its forces exceeded that of most police forces in the West. Nevertheless, public security agencies required and received the assistance of a wide-ranging network of grass-roots organizations to mobilize residents' responses to the government's call for observance of laws, lead the people in maintaining social order and public security, and settle disputes among residents.
In urban areas an average of 11 patrolmen were responsible for controlling an area containing 15,000 or more residents. A patrolman could not know all the people and their particular problems, and therefore needed and enlisted help. The local people's governments and congresses shared responsibility for public order but had no special personnel for the task. The armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
were available, but they had other primary concerns and would be called out only in the most extreme circumstances.
To provide security beyond what could be provided by the police and to extend government control, a system of neighborhood or street committees had been established on a nationwide basis in 1954. The committees were charged with the responsibility of assisting the government in maintaining order. They usually controlled from 10,000 to 20,000 people and consisted of 3 to 7 full-time officials. In the late 1970s, the size and functions of neighborhood committees were expanded. The neighborhood committees were specifically responsible for maintaining public order and were accountable to the local people's congress.
Residents' committees and residents' "small groups," also established in 1954, were subordinate to neighborhood committees. These were the genuine grass-roots organizations, staffed by unpaid local residents elected by their neighbors. They directly involved the people in controlling their neighborhoods, and they reduced the demands on formal state institutions by maintaining surveillance for the public security forces and mediating most civil disputes and minor criminal cases for the judiciary
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
. A residents' committee supervised from 100 to 600 families with a staff of 7 to 17 members, one from each subordinate residents' small group. A residents' small group controlled fifteen to forty households. The public security organization in the countryside was also pervasive. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, it was structured along military lines. The people's commune
People's commune
The people's commune was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of China during the period of 1958 to 1982-85 until they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams...
was the lowest level of government organization, with its administrative committee on a legal par with the local people's government in the urban areas. People's communes were subdivided into production brigades and production teams. Each team elected a people's public security committee, which sent a representative to the committee at the brigade level. Physical control was mostly the responsibility of the militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
units organized at the team, brigade, and commune levels. In the winter of 1982-83 communes were replaced by township governments, and grass-roots committees were patterned after urban committees. These rural grass-roots committees were given legal status by the Draft Organic Regulations for Villagers' Committees approved by the National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...
in April 1987.
Residents' committees and small groups were staffed originally by housewives and retired persons but involved others as their functions expanded. Their pervasive presence made them a primary means for disseminating propaganda, and their grass-roots nature allowed for effective use of peer pressure in mediating disputes and controlling troublemakers. Perhaps 4 or 5 percent of the adult population exercised some authority in what Western experts have described as "participatory democracy in an extended form." The functional subunits, the residents' committees and residents' small groups, were particularly important in controlling the people.
People's mediation
Mediation
Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...
committees, guided and supervised jointly by the basic people's court and the public security station, performed an important function within the residents' committees. They settled minor disputes and disagreements using conciliation
Conciliation
Conciliation is an alternative dispute resolution process whereby the parties to a dispute agree to utilize the services of a conciliator, who then meets with the parties separately in an attempt to resolve their differences...
and peer pressure
Peer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
. Mediation committees were established originally in communist areas during the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
(1945–49) as a natural outgrowth of traditional preferences for local mediation of disputes. Upon taking over the major cities of China in 1949, the Communists were confronted with a tremendous backlog of judicial cases. Mediation committees provided a means of resolving disputes while actively propagandizing and involving the people in the new government. Beginning in 1954 mediation committees were set up in neighborhoods, stores, schools, enterprises, factories, and workshops in the cities and in the production brigades and teams in the countryside.
In the 1980s the five- to eleven-member people's mediation committees were elected by popular vote to two-year terms with the option of being reelected. Members served without pay and could be removed at any time by the electors for dereliction of duty. They were responsible for settling disputes, strengthening popular unity, promoting production and order, and conducting propaganda activities. Parties in dispute came voluntarily to the mediation committee; people seemed to feel they should try mediation before proceeding to a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
. Mediators' duties ranged from acting as go-betweens for parties who refused to talk to one another to defining issues, deciding questions of fact, and issuing tentative or advisory
Advice (opinion)
Advice is a form of relating personal or institutional opinions, belief systems, values, recommendations or guidance about certain situations relayed in some context to another person, group or party often offered as a guide to action and/or conduct...
decisions. Mediation committees also exerted strong political, economic, social, and moral pressures upon one or both parties to gain "voluntary" compliance with the decisions. In addition to mediation committees, other officials, police officers, party members, and work supervisors were expected to serve as mediators. Members of the residents' committees and small groups who were not members of the mediation committees were also involved in the mediation process.
See also
- Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of ChinaMinistry of Justice of the People's Republic of ChinaMinistry of Justice of the People's Republic of China is a ministry of the Chinese central government which is responsible for legal affairs...
- Court system of the People's Republic of ChinaCourt system of the People's Republic of ChinaThe Chinese court system is based on civil law, modeled after the legal systems of Germany and France.-System:According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 and the Organic Law of the People's Courts that went into effect on January 1, 1980, the Chinese courts are divided...
- Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of ChinaMinistry of Public Security of the People's Republic of ChinaThe Ministry of Public Security , is the principal police and security authority of the mainland of the People's Republic of China and the government agency that exercises oversight over and is ultimately responsible for day-to-day law enforcement...
- Public Security BureauPublic Security BureauIn the People's Republic of China, a public security bureau refers to the government offices while the smaller offices are called Police posts which are similar in concept to the Japanese Kōban system) present in each province and municipality that handles policing , public security, and...
- People's Armed PolicePeople's Armed PoliceThe People's Armed Police , officially Chinese People's Armed Police Force is a paramilitary or gendarmerie force primarily responsible for civilian policing and fire rescue duties in the People's Republic of China, as well as provide support to PLA during wartime.In contrast to public security...
- Public Security Bureau
- Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China
- Terrorism in the People's Republic of China
- Custody and repatriationCustody and repatriationCustody and repatriation was an administrative procedure, established in 1982 and ended in 2003, by which the police in the People's Republic of China could detain people if they did not have a residence permit or temporary living permit , and return them to the place where they could legally...
1982 -2003 - Secretariat for Security (Macau)Secretariat for Security (Macau)The Secretariat for Security is the government department responsible for public safety and security in Macau. The role replaced the former post of Secretary for Public Security...
- Macau Security ForceMacau Security ForceThe Macau Security Force is Macau's public security body under the Secretariat for Security, responsible for handling government activities ranging from law enforcement to public safety.-History:...
- Security Bureau (Hong Kong)Security Bureau (Hong Kong)The Security Bureau is a body of the Government of Hong Kong responsible for a range of activities, including law enforcement, search and rescue and administer various laws in relation to the security of Hong Kong....
- Hong Kong Police ForceHong Kong Police ForceThe Hong Kong Police Force is the largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. It is the world's second, and Asia's first, police agency to operate with a modern policing system. It was formed on 1 May 1844, with a strength of 32 officers...
- Judiciary of Hong KongJudiciary of Hong KongThe Judiciary of Hong Kong is responsible for the administration of justice in Hong Kong. It hears all prosecutions and civil disputes, including disputes between individuals and the government. It is fundamental to Hong Kong’s legal system that members of the judiciary are independent of the...
- Department of Justice (Hong Kong)Department of Justice (Hong Kong)The Department of Justice is the department responsible for the laws of Hong Kong headed by the Secretary for Justice. Before 1997, the names of the department and the position was the Legal Department and Attorney General respectively....
- Judiciary of Macau
- Legal system of MacauLegal system of MacauMacau law is broadly based on Portuguese law, and therefore part of the civil law tradition of continental European legal systems. Portuguese law is itself highly influenced by German law...
- Secretary for Justice (Macau)Secretary for Justice (Macau)Secretary for Justice or Secretaria da Justiça was a bureau secretary and senior law officer in the Portuguese administration in Macau. The Secretary headed the Secretariat for Justice, which was responsible for legal affairs and public prosecution in the colony...