The Public Security Bureau in Guangzhou’s Panyu District has recorded a music video about how to stay safe and keep thieves away. The video was completed in August and has been widely shared on Sina Weibo in the past week, so The Nanfang has added English subtitles to hopefully give it a bigger audience.
This video is a follow-up to a “Gangnam Style” parody that the same police force made last year.
A scheme in which a 13 year-old boy would hide in a suitcase and steal other passengers’ luggage in the compartment of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong bus has been exposed and the suspects arrested, Nanfang Daily reported yesterday.
Thirteen year-old A Min’s father is dead and his mother married another man. He met Mr. Xu in an internet bar in March this year and shortly after agreed to become partners in crime. A Min would hide in Xu’s luggage and, using a flashlight and a screwdriver, would steal other passenger’s luggage while in the compartment of a moving bus. His acquisitions included tablets, jewellery and cash.
The alarm was raised on Oct. 12 when a man at Shenzhen bay checkpoint saw Mr. Xu go in with a large case and come out with a small boy who he had not seen go in. He called the police and it emerged that the pair had just come in from Guangzhou on a bus on which A Min had been on a stealing spree.
Officer Fan of the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau said the two were turned over to police in Guangzhou. Xu is being detained and A Ming, as a minor, was taken to a homeless shelter before being sent back to his mother.
Qi Xiaolin
The deputy head of Guangzhou’s Public Security Bureau, Qi Xiaolin, was found hanged to death yesterday, Guangzhou Daily has reported on its microblog. He was 55 years old.
The deputy, who was based in Tianhe District, also had unspecified physical illnesses, news organizations have reported.
Although more details have yet to emerge, Sina Weibo is already buzzing. Some have extended their sympathies to the family. But due to the vagueness of the reasons given for the suicide, speculation is rife about why he really did it. Others have shown schadenfreude.
Here are some of the reactions:
Liberating Oreo: The people of Fujian congratulate you.
Maitian Bianyuan: (This suicide was down to) “suicide with Chinese characteristics.”
Hong Zhi’ang: Was he depressed because he was unable to lose weight?
yzwc: A hero for our times. Sacrificing himself for his comrades and his family.
Guoguo Wangshi: I hope those bastards all get depression.
Haozhu Chu Haozhu: These days, it’s said about all officials who commit suicide that they were suffering from depression.
We will bring you more as new information emerges.
Two police officers were murdered at the Public Security Bureau headquarters on Wenjin South Road in Shenzhen on Sept. 13, Jinghua News reports.
At 9:10 p.m. on Sept. 13 an ambulance was seen entering the headquarters of the Public Security Bureau. It had come for two injured policemen. The yesterday at 12:36 a.m. the Public Security Bureau announced through its microblog that the two officers had died.
Both officers were covered in blood when they were taken away, according to a witness. The officers have been identified as Yang Shao, a departmental deputy in his 30s and Wu Qianchun, an officer in his 50s who had been on patrol earlier in the day, according to local media.
The surgeon who announced to journalists outside Luohu People’s Hospital at 11:30 that night said that both bodies had numerous bullet wounds.
An investigation showed that the two men were found on the floor of Yang’s office around 8:40 that evening. There were no witnesses or CCTV footage. Both officers were highly regarded within the police force, according to colleagues.
The investigation is ongoing.
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A policewoman stopped outside a Renren Le Supermarket in Shenzhen’s Futian District to clip the nails of an old beggar on August 31, according to local media.
The 80 year-old beggar was sitting on the ground opposite the entrance of the supermarket on Jintian Road in Futian District. The passing policewoman saw him and took pity on the man whose nails were uncomfortably long. She went to buy a pair of nail clippers and squatted down to cut the man’s nails.
Several passers-by stopped to photograph the woman, Hao Jieshu, a patrol officer with Futian District.
Hao Jieshu with the old beggar
Netizens rushed to praise Hao, with one saying, “Let’s hope we see these kind of acts become more common.” Another expressed her sepport for such behaviour. Another netizen from Taiyuan City in Shandong Province lamented the lack of similar police officers in his own city.
Fifteen government departments in Guangzhou are collaborating in a new measure to crack down on smoking in the city, according to Southern Metropolis Daily. Eleven smokers received 50 yuan fines for smoking in non-smoking areas on Sept. 1, the first day of the new regulation.
Departments such as the Urban Administration Bureau, the Public Security Bureau, and the Sanitation Department are collaborating to enforce the regulation, with a combined total of more than 200 people assigned to target those who violate it.
Most hotels, internet bars and KTVs in Guangzhou have a no-smoking policy but an investigation showed that many smokers are ignoring the policies.
At around 3:20 p.m. Saturday, police were called to the KTV on the 9th floor of Zhonghua Square on Zhongshan San Road. Once they got to room V16 they say a man smoking in one of the private rooms. Police tried to put the cigarette out, but they met with violent resistance from the man and his three friends.
When the men realised they were being filmed by the media, the smoker accepted the ticket and paid the 50 yuan fine. Over 100 journalists are collaborating in the drive to enforce the regulation.
At 4:45 on the same day, there was another incident in a KTV in which a woman shouted, “Don’t film us. There’s a government official in the room.” A female journalist from Guangdong television then had her camera knocked to the floor.
Police are investigating the case.
The hotline to report people who smoke in non-smoking areas is 12319.
A BMW sped along Yongjie Street in Dongguan on August 11, veering into other lanes and generally driving erratically. Shortly after 9pm, the car slammed into seven pedestrians, killing 4 and injuring 3, according to local media.
One witness claimed to have heard the vehicle speeding when he was standing with his back to the road using his mobile phone; when he turned around the vehicle had already gone but there was a victim lying on the ground.
One victim identified as Xiao Dong told reporters from his hospital bed that he felt the vehicle’s headlights shine on him from behind. Then he turned around and saw the car, but the next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital.
After stopping the now heavily damaged car, the driver calmly got out and was smirking, according to witnesses.
The 26 year-old driver, who is from Guangdong, was detained by the Public Security Bureau and he was discovered to have undergone treatment for mental illness. One Public Security Officer claimed that he had never been cured.
Young men in expensive cars running over innocents touch a raw societal nerve in China. In 2010, a student was killed on the campus of Hebei University by a man driving a Volkswagen Sedan. After getting out of the car, the man exclaimed that he was the son of deputy police chief “Li Gang” and challenged them to sue him. To this day “My father is Li Gang!” has become a sinister phrase signifying the elite status of some government officials.
BMWs are also a potent status symbol. On matchmaking show If You Are The One in 2010, a girl famously displayed her materialism by saying she would rather cry in the back of a BMW than smile on the back of a bicycle.
This case, though, doesn’t appear to be caused by another spoiled playboy causing havoc.
A woman was stabbed to death by two assailants with fruit knives as she was getting into her car next to the Public Security Bureau (PSB) Building on Jiefang Road in Shenzhen, according to The Daily Sunshine.
The woman was attacked outside her BMW by two men who were trying to seize her handbag at 3:15 pm on August 8. She resisted and had her throat slit.
The men then ran off in different directions. When paramedics arrived at the scene, she was in a pool of her own blood and did not survive.
One of the assailants, a 24 year-old man surnamed Cao from Jiangxi Province, was arrested. The other escaped.
Many if not most expats in Shenzhen have set foot in Diwang Building as that is where the final stages of the visa application process take place. One nearby resident expressed shock that such a thing was possible in such a developed area so close to a major government building.
On its microblog, the PSB said the murder had taken place in a “public” carpark, which technically it is, even though it is used by workers at Diwang Building.
The PSB is sparing no efforts to catch the other assailant, it said in a statement.
With the world about to descend on Shenzhen, China is tightening up to ensure people that would “cause harm” to the country are kept out. When you add the Jasmine Revolutions sweeping the Middle East and high inflation in China, you can see why those in Zhongnanhai might be a little jittery.
We told you earlier that foreigners are being warned to ensure they have all the proper paperwork to live and work in Shenzhen. But the government certainly isn’t picking on laowai: it is also ridding Shenzhen of anybody else it doesn’t like prior to the games. From the China Daily:
Shenzhen has ejected about 80,000 “potentially unstable people” in a bid to secure social stability for the upcoming 26th Summer Universiade, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.
Shen Shaobao, vice director of Shenzhen Police Bureau announced the figure from the “100-days Social Security Campaign” during a news conference.
“People living in Shenzhen without proper identity, justifiable reasons and those acting suspiciously posing a threat to people and the social security are what we called unstable residents,”said Shen.
Eight groups of people are listed in the high-alert category, including former inmates, nomads, unemployed vagrants, people engaged in suspicious activity including drug trafficking and contraband goods. Since January police have also removed people who live by fraudulent means such as child-beggars, mentally ill people who pose a danger to others, and unregistered residents who earn money in the rental business and unclassified floating residents.
The Public Security Bureau is getting good at this, having done the same in Beijing in 2008 and Shanghai and Guangzhou in 2010. The question is, what does the Universiade think about it? The Wall Street Journal tried to find out:
Neither Shenzhen police nor the International University Sports Federation, the Belgium-based organization that puts on the Summer Universiade, responded to written requests for comment from The Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear where evicted residents were transferred and how officials determined which mentally ill residents posed a threat to public safety.
If you are an “undesirable” or an “unemployed vagrant”, best to lay low until October.
If your employer hasn’t applied for a proper work visa for you, or you haven’t registered your home with the local police office, you’d better get on it.
As we can all see by looking around us, Guangdong is growing fast and the opportunities here are drawing people from all over the world. This is creating some headaches for the Guangdong Provincial Government, which is trying to keep track of everything. With more and more laowai making Guangdong their home, the government has decided to enlist locals to help it police the comings and goings of foreign residents. In a move that is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, the government has a new policy implemented effective May 1 that encourages residents to report any malpractice by foreigners, such as overstaying their visa or working without a proper one. From the venerable China Daily:
The regulation, approved by the provincial government on Jan 21, was posted on the local government website recently and is the first of its kind concerning management of foreigners on the mainland.
The six-chapter, 67-article regulation stipulates that no one is allowed to provide accommodation for foreigners who have overstayed or are without a valid passport.
Property owners violating the rule will be fined three times the amount of the monthly rent they charge.
The regulation came as the booming province has attracted a growing number of foreigners seeking employment and trade opportunities.
More than 63,000 permanent foreign residents are registered in Guangdong and more than 4 million foreigners visit the province annually. But the province has witnessed a growing number of illegal immigrants working or doing business.
To be fair, this stuff should be common sense for anybody that intends to live here, but a good reminder to get your proverbial stuff in order lest your workmate or neighbour rat you out.
Especially in Shenzhen, which will see the Universiade arrive this summer, it’s best to make sure that all your paperwork is in order should anybody come to check up on you.
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