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Opening up in China
Radical legislation that will ultimately transform the Chinese private security industry could be in place before the Beijing Olympics
With less than a year to go before China hosts the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, it is anxious to reassure the rest of the world that security is high on its agenda. Not that many people have doubts about its ability to control such a huge event.Misgivings, where they exist, are likely to be more about the manner of the interaction between its security forces and the competitors and spectators, rather than its unquestionable determination to mount a troublefree Olympiad.
Many of those who are taking part or planning to watch the Games will expect to be greeted by stern and inscrutable faces checking their authorisation documents, rather than the strict but visitor-friendly security personnel encountered at major events in Western countries.
And they probably won’t be disappointed, given that the primary security presence at the Games will consist of police and military officers whose training does not usually include the art of smiling.
But Gao Yu, deputy director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, when addressing the first Beijing International Security Forum last year, revealed that security staff would be “an essential supplement” to the police force and would be responsible for safeguarding sports venues, maintaining public order and checking certificates during the Games.
In March this year, Liu Shaowu, head of security for the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, gave more details about the security measures. In an interview, he promised the cost of security would be lower than at other recent Olympics, explaining:
“The personnel that we need for the Games are already in our police force. Basically it is different from the contractor system in foreign countries and that can help us avoid large expenditure.”
 About 20 government agencies are involved in the Beijing Olympic security plan, Liu said, including the municipal public security and firefighting bureaus, the Ministry of National Security, and the Headquarters of the General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA ). They would be supported by volunteers recruited from military and police academies. According to Gao Yu, a special training programme has been launched for many thousands of security staff in Beijing to improve their professional skills and knowledge before the Olympics begin on 8 August 2008. Some will read that as an admission that the skills of the vast majority of China’s security personnel are in need of improvement, just as they will regard Liu Shaowu’s comments of the contractor system in foreign countries as an understandable but complacent boast. | Many Western observers point out that so long as it remains under police control, China’s security industry will lack the competition and market pressures that are essential for it – in Olympic terms – to “lift its game”. All that is due to change, however, though not in time to have any real impact on the Beijing Olympics. In the very near future, the Chinese Government will introduce new legislation that will open up its private security industry to foreign investment. And for once, the Olympics have nothing to do with the decision. Instead, it is China’s commitment to the World Trade Organisation (WTO ), which it joined in December 2001, that is the driving force behind this reform. Private security companies have existed in China since the 1980s, operating alongside state-owned security guard companies. But, as Gao Yu has pointed out, “In Beijing, private security guards work closely with the police.” Indeed, the industry is principally funded and operated by public security departments. |
Since 1986, when the first private security company was set up in Beijing, more than 100 others have been established, operating alongside the two stateowned companies. China’s very first security service provider opened for business in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, in 1984 and the national total is now over 2,300 companies employing 1.3 million staff. But it is still in its infancy and faces many problems.
Little is known outside the country about the quality of service, but in most cases it is unlikely to have reached international standards. The winds of change were announced by Ma Weiya, deputy director of the public order regulation department under the Ministry of Public Security, another speaker at last September’s Beijing International Security Forum.
“The opening [to private investors from home and abroad] is essential to a rapidly growing industry and is also our WTO commitment,” he told the delegates, adding: “In principle, foreign investors will be allowed to set up joint-venture security companies in China. But certain areas, such as armed escort services, will remain closed.”
It was time, he said, to turn public security departments from operators to regulators. But a year later, the legislation has yet to be revealed, though most observers believe it is imminent.
“Without monopolisation, the market will become more competitive and customers are likely to enjoy better services,” observed Mo Jihong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ National Institute of Law.
That’s also the view of Ken May, managing director of G4S Security Services in China and Taiwan and business development director of the Group’s Asia Pacific region. He sees the opening up of the market as “a tremendous opportunity” for G4S which has operated in Hong Kong for over 40 years, in Taiwan for 15 years and was the first international security company to set up in China – in 2000 – offering consultative services.
“There’s a common school of thought that it will actually expand the security industry because it will allow people to do more than what the police are actually doing or are interested in doing. But it will be a long time before it will be able to achieve the same level of competition, quality and openness as in the international arena, and it will be able to do that only by proceeding carefully with foreign partners who have a lot of experience in China.”
Raymond Wong, managing director of G4S Facilities Management in Shanghai, agrees, adding: “Professionalism and competition will be the new elements that will transform the security industry in China.”
And for our planet’s most populous nation that change is long overdue.
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Opening up in China
