Nation adapts to new normal as security measures boosted

A photo has been widely circulated online showing commuters in massive queues outside a subway station in Beijing during rush hour on Monday morning, after the Beijing government started full-body searches in three more stations as part of an upgraded anti-terrorism campaign.

It comes against the backdrop of the whole country beefing up security by increasing armed patrols and anti-terrorism drills, after an array of deadly terrorist attacks.

Strengthening overall security as opposed to just security at isolated events has been a key emphasis in China recently, said a senior police officer in the Department of Public Security of Jiangsu Province.

This round of upgraded security measures, marked by guns being intensively equipped for an increasing number of patrols and drills, has been different in many ways to the previous ones which normally target important events such as the Olympics, security observers said.

In the past, patrolling police officers were normally just equipped with truncheons.

During the past two months, patrolling police officers have comprised police from paramilitary forces and SWAT units. They have been visibly increasing in number in busy urban areas such as railway stations, which have been the target of at least three violent attacks in recent times.

Police everywhere

The Ministry of Public Security announced on March 16 that armed patrols across the country should be intensified to combat criminal activities.

Police in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, vowed to "let local residents see police around them at every moment" and 5,000 out of a total of 14,000 police officers in the city are patrolling the streets.

Even in Pingba county in South China's Guizhou province, a county with a population of some 300,000 people, hundreds of armed police officers patrolled local bus stations earlier in May to act as a deterrent.

Armed police wearing bulletproof vests have started to check the identity cards of every passenger waiting in a long line at Guangzhou Railway Station after six people were injured in a knife attack in the square of the station on May 6. Lights on all the five police booths flash day and night.

More than 2,000 kilometers away in Beijing, police officers armed with submachine guns patrol the Beijing South Railway Station, while in the city's west railway station, knifes are forbidden to be put into luggage and residents who pick up passengers must provide their real names.

As the number of police is limited, officers with desk jobs have had to be mobilized to patrol streets in many places.

A recent policy claimed that all members of the Beijing police must stop taking vacations to devote themselves to anti-terrorism security work.

Drilled in

In the past two months, media reports have emphasized the training police face, and how they are being trained to use guns.

A majority of the nation's provinces and municipalities have conducted anti-terrorism drills since March, simulating cases such as knife attacks and hostage situations.

Beijing police conducted two drills equipped with armored vehicles and helicopters within one week in early May and published them live on Weibo, China's twitter-like service.

The Ministry of Public Security in April required police nationwide to participate in special training on using weapons such as guns, truncheons and tear gas.

A source who works in the security system in East China's Jiangxi Province said that police, including civil personnel throughout the province, have been trained on using weapons over the past few months.

Public security authorities in Southwest China's Yunnan province announced that all officers from grass-roots police to the head of the provincial department of public security must be trained, with experts from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Hong Kong invited to give lessons and imitation knives previously used in training being replaced with one-meter-long real knives.

Beijing officially launched a specialized armed patrol on May 12 in which 150 armed vehicles patrol the streets every day, with 13 officers assigned to each vehicle. They have been charged with counter-terrorism assignments and riot control instead of normal public security issues. The armed crew will be stationed on Beijing streets on a long-term basis.

Moreover, the security upgrade extends to nearly all of society, as it also covers other government agencies and the business sector.

Water authorities in Yunnan Province have strengthened anti-terrorism measures which protect water sources and projects, after a terrorist attack in Kunming, the provincial capital, killed 29 people and injured 143 in March.

Seven funeral parlors in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, organized a drill simulating a toxic gas attack in January, while guards in stores in Guangzhou conducted drills and were taught to cordon off customers in malls when attacks occur, to prevent chaos on the streets.

Moves from the top

Chinese President Xi Jinping convened the first meeting of the newly-launched National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China, vowing to "carry out a comprehensive national security notion."

Mei Jianming, director of the anti-terrorism research center at the People's Public Security University, said that the latest security upgrade is a strategic adjustment responding to the emergence of new criminal trends, which is a more comprehensive response instead of merely an upgrade.

The new trend means police need more capability to deal with terrorist attacks, which are more unpredictable and less regular, said the senior officer in Jiangsu Province.

Zheng Guohua, an officer at the police station of the Guangzhou Railway Station, said the days when he was able to take a two-day leave after going on night shift have gone, never to return.

"We must be on guard at every moment, as no one can predict what will happen next," Zheng said.

He recalled that the security standards during the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 were as strict as they are now, but the key difference was that the games came to an end.

However, Mei said it's difficult and unnecessary to continue to use most of the strictest measures on a long-term basis and it is unlikely the measures will be permanent, as requirements need to be normalized gradually as China adapts and creates legal foundations.