Centre for China Analysis and Strategy

CHINA-INTERNAL: INCREASING SECURITY PRESENCE IN XINJIANG

A recent study by Adrian Zenz and James Leibold and issued on March 14, 2017, by the Jamestown Foundation stated that data collected from job postings reveals four stages in the Party-state’s incremental securitization strategy in Xinjiang. It detailed these as::

Stage 1 (2009–2011): Responding to the 2009 Urumqi Riots
< Despite claims that Wang Lequan ruled Xinjiang with an “iron-fist” during his fifteen-year tenure as Xinjiang Party Secretary (1994-2010), advertised police recruitment was relatively small prior to the 2009 violence. Yet the 7.5 Incident was a wake-up call, with top Party officials deeply embarrassed by the scale of the violence in Urumqi and their inability to quickly quell the unrest. The situation only stabilized after Beijing rushed 14,000 People’s Armed Police (PAP, 武警) forces as well as the relatively recently formed Special Police Units (SPUs, 特警) from 31 provinces to Xinjiang (China Digital Times, July 10, 2009; Sina xinwen, August 17, 2009). In response, the XUAR government initiated its first-ever recruitment of SPU officers by advertising 2,655 positions in December 2009.

While SPUs existed in Xinjiang prior to 2009, their numbers were insufficient to deal with large-scale security threats. SPU officers are heavily equipped with sub-machine guns and bulletproof vests. Physical requirements for admission are also very demanding, with new recruits subject to intense mental and physical training (Guojia gongwuyuan ju, April 27, 2011; Zhongguo Gansu wang, January 18). At that time, the state was intent on investing large sums for the creation of a highly trained and heavily equipped strike force.

The second part of the state’s response to the 7.5 Incident was an investment in new personnel across the public security agencies in the XUAR, which includes the regular police force (人民警察). Total security-related recruitment, across all agencies and job types, doubled, rising from 6,876 positions in 2006–2008 to 15,841 in 2009–2011. XUAR officials evidently sought to quickly boost the region’s undermanned security personal after Zhang Chunxian succeeded Wang Lequan as Party Secretary in April 2010.

Stage 2 (2012–13): Expanded Policing and Surveillance in the Rural South
In January 2012, the new secretary of the XUAR Political and Legislative Affairs Committee Xiong Xuanguo announced the recruitment of 8,000 new police officers in order to beef-up security ahead of the 18th CPC National Congress in autumn of that year (Tianshangwang news, February 1, 2012). This intake advertised 11,559 security-related positions, a 57 percent increase in adverts over 2009 and the highest figure yet for Xinjiang. The principal focus was Southern Xinjiang, due to XUAR officials’ conviction that the violence perpetrated in Urumqi come from Uyghur migrants from the south. [2]

For the first time in 2012, XUAR officials committed themselves to fully implementing the one village, one policeman (一村一警) scheme, which had been rolled out in various Eastern provinces from the early 2000s (China Brief, September 4, 2015). Under this policy, a single police officer leads up to three assistant police staff (协警 or 辅警) in each rural village or hamlet (Tianshangwang news, February 1, 2012). The latter are a highly informal police force. Assistant police are only supposed to assist regular police officers in their duties, and (in theory) do not possess any enforcement rights (行政执法权). These positions come with lower salaries because pay levels are determined by the local authorities at the county or city district levels. The combination of lower pay, contract-based employment, and lower recruitment requirements renders the assistant police force a highly strategic component of a multi-tiered policing strategy, placing a large garrison of low-skilled security staff under smaller numbers of more highly equipped and trained police.

Most of these assistant police officers were recruited to man small, community-based police sub-stations (警务室) across the XUAR (Xinjiang Daily, December 29, 2012). [3] These comprise both fixed structures and bus-like units that can be transported with trucks, which facilitates a highly mobile form of policing. Correspondingly, 71 percent of the region’s 2012 police sub-station recruitment targeted regions with a Uyghur population share of 40 percent or higher, far more than in 2009, when only 40 percent of all security-related recruitment targeted such Uyghur regions. [4] Moreover, 78 percent of advertised police sub-station recruitment positions in 2012 were designated for rural regions, compared to only 42 percent in 2009.

The establishment of a police sub-station network was by no means a Xinjiang innovation. Rather, by the end of 2006, police sub-stations were commonplace across most urban regions of China, while more developed provinces, like Zhejiang, extended their reach into rural communities as well (Xinhuanet, February 5, 2007). Their accelerated implementation in Xinjiang was, at least partially, a response to a string of violent attacks on state targets in Uyghur regions beginning in 2012, as well as a possible factor underlying retaliator attacks.

Stage 3 (2014–2015): Grid-Style Community Policing and Big Data Surveillance
Following a series of high-profile terror attacks, including a suicide car bombing in Beijing (October 2013), train station stabbing in Kunming (March 2014) and market bombing in Urumqi (April 2014), Party officials announced a nation-wide counter-terrorism campaign, with Zhang Chunxian declaring a “people’s war on terror” in Xinjiang and Chinese president Xi Jinping calling for “walls made of copper and steel” and “nets spread from the earth to the sky” to capture these “terrorists” ((People’s Daily, May 26, 2014; Xinhua, May 29, 2014).

In response, XUAR security-related recruitment again surpassed the 10,000 position mark. The 2014 intake continued the 2012 trend away from a well-equipped, expensive policing force toward a more cost-efficient yet surveillance-intense posture, with most of the new positions based on casual employment contracts. The 2014 recruitment drive introduced several new employment categories, signaling the regime’s efforts to extend the reach of what officials were now calling grid-style social management (社会网格化管理). Grid management employs CCTV cameras, mobile Internet technologies and big data analytics to monitor all suspicious activities within a discrete geometric zone. This approach was first trialed in Beijing and Shanghai during the early 2000s and gradually rolled out in the frontier regions of Xinjiang and Tibet after the 2008-2009 unrest (China Tibet News, November 3, 2014; Yaxinwang, January 24, 2013).

In 2014, security recruitment included, for the first time, video surveillance (视频监看) staff. Following the 7-5 Incident, XUAR authorities installed millions of new security cameras, initially in major urban areas like Urumqi but increasingly across rural and remote communities. To maximize their surveillance capabilities, dedicated police technicians were now employed. Other new recruitment categories included patrol and prevention (巡逻防抗) as well as grid patrol and prevention (网格化巡控) staff. Most of these positions were poorly paid and hired on a short-term contract basis. Unlike the previous focus on the rural south, patrol and prevention staff were recruited equally across the XUAR.

The evolution toward new surveillance-oriented, technology-focused security jobs continued in 2015 with the introduction of internet surveillance and prevention (网络监看) positions on top of the existing internet security (网络安全) job category first introduced in 2009. At the same time, 2015 also witnessed a resurgence of more formal recruitment, with 2,502 new positions for police sub-station officers and 3,478 public security or SPU officers. The 2015 intake evidently aimed to shore up staff numbers across all levels of this evolving multi-tiered security apparatus. With a total of 9,314 security-related adverts, its size remained slightly below that of the 2012 and 2014 intakes.

Stage 4 (2016-): “Convenience Police Stations” and the Massive Expansion of Surveillance Manpower

However, the largest boost in policing capabilities took place in 2016. A total of 31,687 security-related positions were advertised, more than a three-fold increase over the previous year. This unprecedented recruitment drive sought to boost the Party-state’s surveillance capabilities across all regions of Xinjiang, as only 35 percent of advertised positions were designated for regions with a Uyghur population of 40 percent or higher.

Notably, 89 percent of these new hires were associated with so-called convenience police stations (便民警务站), which are currently being built across the XUAR in the tens of thousands. Chen Quanguo had first introduced these stations in the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 2011, where media reports praised them as Lhasa’s “unquenchable lights” (Sohu news, April 3, 2015). [5] After being transferred to Xinjiang in August 2016, Chen ordered their construction across Xinjiang. In comparison to the more mobile police sub-stations, convenience police stations are (in most cases) sophisticated concrete and bulletproof installations (Xinhua, October 27, 2016). They house basic medical equipment, umbrellas, charging stations for mobile phones, and many other “convenient” community services, and are festooned with decorative elements or even ethnic colors and styles. Japan’s kōban (交番) or “police box” system is one source of inspiration for Chinese security official (Renmin Anquan, March 3, 2009), although so-called community-based policing is now an international normal.

Local media have praised these convenience police stations as “bringing zero-distance service” (让服务零距离) to the people of Xinjiang (Urumqi city government, October 28, 2016). Yet, their real purpose is surveillance, cleverly designed to make Orwellian levels of securitization more palatable, while bringing 24-hour “zero-distance” policing to an ever-increasing number of neighborhoods. During a recent inspection tour, Chen Quanguo called on these new police officers to response to any signs of trouble in under a minute’s time (Tianshan, February 21). The combination of low-skilled foot-soldiers stationed in and around convenience police stations and high-tech equipment connected to extensive information processing systems has dramatically increased the Party-state’s surveillance capabilities, providing what local media claims is “complete coverage without any chinks, blind spots, or blank spaces” (Boertala bao, November 3, 2016).

(Comment: These figures are limited to public security agencies (公共安全) and do not include recruitment of the People’s Armed Police (人民武装警察) nor the Ministry of State Security (国家安全部). Also, recruitment for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC, 兵团) is not included. Available data for both Xinjiang and other provinces, such as Qinghai and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), indicate that on average, approximately 80 to 90 percent of advertised positions are actually awarded.)