http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/world/asia/28china.html?hpw
China Approves Law Governing Armed Police Force Associated Press Chinese paramilitary police restrained a man playing a hostage taker during an exercise in Hefei on Thursday. China's legislature has approved a law giving the troops authority in "handling rebellion, riots, large-scale serious criminal violence, terror attacks and other social safety incidents." By MICHAEL WINES Published: August 27, 2009 BEIJING - Senior members of China's legislature approved a law on Thursday detailing the authority of the People's Armed Police, a large paramilitary force that was criticized in some quarters as slow to respond to the riots in the western Xinjiang region last month, in which nearly 200 people died. The new law appears to address those concerns by clarifying how and when the troops may be deployed. The law is the first to explicitly govern the force, whose members serve as border guards, security guards for government officials, firefighters and relief workers during disasters but who are best known outside China for their role in suppressing political and social unrest. The troops will have authority in "handling rebellion, riots, large-scale serious criminal violence, terror attacks and other social safety incidents," according to a summary of the law published by the state-run Xinhua news agency before the measure was approved. The legislation also apparently removes the authority of county-level local officials to summon the force to handle disorders. Chinese citizens have complained that the armed police are sometimes enlisted by low-level government officials to abusively bolster their powers, sometimes with excessive force. Estimates of the size of the People's Armed Police have ranged as high as 1.5 million troops, but the government said the number in 2006 was 660,000. Once seen as corrupt and ill trained, the armed police have become more professional in recent years. But they sometimes are regarded as unaccountable, and human rights advocates have accused the troops of brutality and insensitivity to the law in handling civil disorders. The troops' contact with average Chinese citizens has grown in recent years as China's economic transformation - and dislocation - has led to an increasing number of spontaneous street protests. President Hu Jintao, in Xinjiang on Tuesday, told armed police troops there that ensuring social stability was "the most urgent task" they faced. Wang Yukai, a professor at China's National School of Administration, said in an interview on Thursday that stripping local officials of the authority to summon the police was perhaps the most important provision of the new legislation. "This is to prevent the misuse of the armed police by local governments, to prevent the deaths of innocent people," he said. Conflict is inevitable given China's rapid changes, Mr. Wang said, but "sometimes it is counterproductive to use force." "I think the government understands this and does not want to see it happen," he added. Xiyun Yang contributed research. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
