The Law on the PAP (中华人民共和国人民武装警 察法) was passed shortly after the 2009 Xinjiang riots, following criticism of the PAP’s slow response and in anticipation of security requirements for celebrations surrounding the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. The legislation reportedly removes the au-thority of county-level officials to call out the force, providing provincial and national level authorities a better chance to limit escalation of small-scale local disturbances into larger uprisings.14 The law spells out eight main security and defense tasks. In major cities, Xinjiang, and Tibet, specialized PAP units have pri-mary responsibility for counterterror and emergency
response. In other urban areas and townships, PSB special units figure more prominently.15
In late-October 2011, the National People’s Con-gress (NPC) enacted a new antiterrorist law to clarify China’s definition of “terrorism” and outline respon-sibilities for counterterror actions.16 A stated objective of the law is to facilitate Chinese cooperation in inter-national anti-terrorism efforts, though it also poten-tially provides codification for martial responses and detentions in cases of civil dissent.17
According to China’s 2010 Defense White Paper, the CMC approved and promulgated “Regulations on Emergency Command in Handling Emergencies by the Armed Forces” (“军队处置突发事件应急指挥 规定”) governing social stability and emergency re-sponse operations. The white paper gives few details on specific implications for the PAP, but indicates that the document provides guidelines for organizing, commanding, and integrating security and military forces for response to sudden incidents. Integrated command and control (C2) of combined PLA, PAP, and PSB forces for counterterror exercises and drills is a high priority.
PAP Structure.
The PAP is under the dual leadership of the State Council and the CMC. The State Council assigns rou-tine tasks and is responsible for administrative and financial management. The CMC is responsible for determining PAP organizational structure, managing officers, and establishing guidelines for training and political work.18 The PAP comprises approximately 660,000 paramilitary police. According to China’s 2008 Defense White Paper, the missions of the PAP in
peace-time are to “perform guard duties, handle emergen-cies, combat terrorism, and participate in and support national economic development,” and, in wartime, to assist the PLA “in defensive operations.”19
The PAP has four general force groupings. The first and largest group is comprised of the internal de-fense or guard corps units, under the direct control of PAP headquarters. The second group consists of the security guard, fire-fighting, and border defense units managed primarily by provincial-level and county-level departments and MPS bureaus. The final group-ing includes hydropower, gold mine, transportation, and forestry security and construction units. These are managed jointly by the PAP headquarters and corresponding ministries (Land and Resources, For-estry, Transportation, etc.) under the State Council.20 Unlike the 2008 version, China’s 2010 Defense White Paper does not have a separate section devoted to PAP modernization or force building, and it is difficult to determine from limited available sources the extent to which the PAP may reorganize, if at all, under the new PAP and antiterror laws.
While sources vary in delineating the exact unit structure of the PAP from top to bottom, five levels of command are noted throughout the literature: the Gen-eral Headquarters in Beijing (总部); General Corps/
Contingents (总队) at the provincial or centrally con-trolled city level; detachments (支队) at the prefecture or municipality level; brigades/battalions/groups (大 队) at the county level; and companies/squadrons (中 队) at the township level.21 According to one Xinhua report, the PAP has 30 border security contingents;
110 prefecture level detachments; 20 prefecture-level marine police detachments; 310 county-level groups;
1,691 border police substations; 207 border
inspec-tion stainspec-tions; 46 frontier inspecinspec-tion stainspec-tions; and 113 mobile groups deployed along the various sections of the border.22 According to the 2010 Defense White Paper: “The State Commission of Border and Coastal Defense, under the dual leadership of the State Coun-cil and the CMC, coordinates China’s border and coastal defenses. All military area commands, as well as border and coastal provinces, cities and counties, have commissions to coordinate border and coastal defenses within their respective jurisdictions.”23
Probably the most important structural adjust-ment to internal security forces in recent years is the modernization and deployment of national-level rap-id response forces. Both MPS and PAP have special police in every province and most major cities, with counterterrorism and antiriot mission responsibilities.
Contingency antihijacking squads align under provin-cial armed police corps; other internal defense forces, border defense units, and fire brigade units undergo counterterror training.24
Special units are trained at the PAP Special Police School (武警特种警察学院), which features sniper instruction, riot control, hostage rescue, and related training. The school dates to the early 1980s, when several hijacking incidents in China led to the estab-lishment of a special anti-hijacking squad—a regimen-tal-sized unit formed from elements transferred from the PLA Air Force’s (PLAAF) 15th Airborne Corps and the Air Force Reserve School. When the PAP was established shortly thereafter, the special police group was subordinated to the PAP as “the special police school,” responsible for both operational and training missions. In 2000, the school was renamed the PAP Special Police School, commanded by a division or deputy army command-level officer.25
Each provincial PAP Corps reportedly has at least one special combat group or squadron trained and equipped for counterterrorism operations. One source notes that the first of these was the Cheetah Commando unit subordinate to the 9th Detachment of the Shanghai armed police.26 Shenyang’s Tiger Commando Unit reportedly recently conducted an exercise focused on anti-hijacking operations related to a mass transit target in Harbin. The most visible of these units, however, is the Beijing 13th Detachment Snow Leopard Commando Unit. Established in 2002, the Snow Leopard unit is a national-level counterter-ror force headquartered in Beijing, and is considered China’s premier hostage rescue and counterterrorist assault unit.
The Snow Leopards participated in a hostage res-cue exercise during the Sino-Russian “COOPERA-TION 2007” exercise near Moscow, and elements have provided protection for Chinese diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan.27 The unit served a central role in the 2008 Olympic security operations, and deployed in August 2011 to Xinjiang to secure the town of Aksu in the af-termath of violence that the Chinese media blamed on
“religious extremists” trained in Pakistan. Elements of the Snow Leopards remained in Xinjiang to provide security for the China-Eurasia Expo held in Urumqi in early-September 2011.28 A CCTV documentary on the Snow Leopards indicates that the group comprises as-sault, reconnaissance, engineer, explosive ordinance disposal, and sniper squadrons, and claims that 90 percent of new commando recruits are eliminated during an 8-month initial training program.29
A PAP helicopter group is subordinate to the Xin-jiang General Corps, focused on counterterrorism response and assault missions. This is reportedly the
PAP’s only aviation unit, and it has participated in nu-merous major exercises and “frontline anti-terrorism operations.”30
Responsibility for maritime domestic security op-erations in China is somewhat ambiguous. The China Coast Guard (CCG) transitioned from PAP control to the Ministry of State Security’s Border Control depart-ment in mid-2006. With 11 regional units and 28 de-tachments, the CCG aspires to move from strictly riv-erine/coastal missions to open water operations, but faces stiff competition for these missions from forces serving under the Bureau of Fisheries and State Oce-anic Administration.31 The PAP retains marine police detachments, but their roles and responsibilities in counterterror operations are unclear.
PAP Funding.
There are traditionally three main sources of fund-ing for the PAP. The first is a distinct budget line in the PRC state budget, reflected in the Minister of Finance’s Budgetary Report and Premier’s Govern-ment Work Report. This source includes funds from the central budget and the departments or ministries that maintain specialized PAP units. These special-ized units include gold mine, forestry, hydroelectric facility, and transportation security units. There is no evidence that the PAP receives funds from the PLA budget, although the PAP falls under the operational control of the PLA General Staff Department during wartime, and likely would receive some operational PLA funding subsequent to a mobilization order.
The second major source of funding is provided by provincial, municipal/prefecture, or county gov-ernments. The money spent on paramilitary units as
a percentage of provincial budgets is again relatively low, ranging from 0.03 percent to 0.36 percent of total provincial expenditure. Border and coastal provinces generally have the highest per capita expenses on PAP.
While still small in absolute terms, local expenditures on the PAP have grown significantly in relative terms since the mid-1990s, rising from as low as 2.5 percent of total PAP funding to as high as 15 percent in the decade from 1996 to 2006. Stressing the increasing im-portance of local investment in PAP modernization, the Political Commissar of the Guangdong provincial PAP General Unit noted that the stability of local Party government requires grassroots funding for PAP fa-cility construction, “informatization” initiatives, and counterterrorist equipment.32
The final category is extra budgetary funds from PAP businesses, fines, and security fees from gov-ernment units and enterprises. The latter category largely includes fees paid by ministries in Beijing for PAP protection of their facilities and housing.33 Ac-cording to official statistics, China’s public security spending almost doubled from 2007 to 2010, in line with the wide array of perceived threats discussed earlier and CCP focus on security force flexibility and readiness. The 2009 PAP Law, however, does not ad-dress funding issues or provide any evidence of shift-ing budget priorities or increased control over the PAP budget by central authorities. The law ostensi-bly prevents officials at county level and below from ordering PAP unit deployment, but rising local PAP funding potentially complicates national-level control of deployment decisions. Investigations into various Chongqing municipality organs in the aftermath of the Bo Xilai purge may drive a new look at local PAP unit posture, funding, and allegiances, but writings by
senior provincial-level PAP leaders indicate a desire to improve links between local governments and PAP units, rather than weaken them. These same sources also link the development of civil-military emergency response plans to close relationships between PAP units and local officials and committees.34
JOINT INTEGRATION AND MULTI-LATERAL