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SCMP Reporter

A bilingual manual prepares officers for a flood of foreigners at the 2008 Olympics

It does not take much reading between the lines to work out what mainland police are concerned about during the run-up to the 2008 Olympics. It is all there, in Chinese and English, in their language training textbook.

The Olympic Security English training manual has been designed by the Public Security Bureau to help police officers maintain social order using a foreign language.

The Falun Gong spiritual group, foreign reporters, terrorists and Xinjiang separatists all come in for close attention in the elaborate bilingual role plays throughout the 252-page textbook.

Straight away, in chapter one, just after the boys and girls in blue have come to terms with 'hello, sir' and 'welcome to Beijing', they are thrown into a challenging sketch called 'How to stop illegal news coverage'.

A wandering reporter is stopped by a policeman and asked what he is doing. When he responds that he is working on a story about the Falun Gong, the policeman replies: 'But Falun Gong has nothing to do with the Games ... It's beyond your permit.'

The journalist is criticised for breaking the laws in China and is whisked off to the Public Security Bureau so police can 'clear up this matter'.

In another chapter, an Afghan is accused of breaking into a hotel room. Under heavy interrogation by the police officer, the suspect breaks down and admits: 'I learned that an American lived in this room, so I wanted to take revenge on him ... my family was killed when the US bombed Afghanistan. I became homeless and I hate Americans.'

Suddenly showing a more sensitive side, the policeman says: 'We feel sympathy for your misfortune. But your behaviour to deliberately hurt an innocent American is against our law, and you disrupted our social order, especially during the Olympic Games.'

Lesson 17 is on counter-terrorism, and it does not take long before the restive province of Xinjiang gets a dishonourable mention. An emergency telephone call to the police reports that a man in the Xinjiang Resident Office has a bomb. At that point in the language lesson, the students get to barge through a door and shout: 'Put your hands up. Freeze!'

Xinjiang province crops up again as police hunt down a Taleban-trained gang that committed an armed robbery at a Beijing bank. And it's there again, when a Pakistani thief teams up with a rogue from a village in Xinjiang who has a scar beside his left eye, which is apparently 'from a stab - dark red, about 10cm long'.

No other Chinese province is mentioned in the textbook in reference to criminal activity.

Various other chapters deal with language that might be useful when interrogating people, taking reports of theft, dealing with traffic accidents and handling drugs and arms cases.

Some of the language the police are meant to learn is extremely formal, while other sections are considerably more abrupt. In one scenario, a British woman named Helen who lives in Hong Kong is stopped on the road and hauled off to a police station.

She exclaims: 'You're violating my human right. I protest!'

The sharp reply is: 'No tricks! Don't move!'

Officials estimate two million foreigners will visit Beijing for the Olympics.

The bilingual manual focuses on maintaining social order and, where possible, launching a uniform-clad charm offensive. When one visitor to the city is given back the wallet that he left behind in a taxi, with his wad of cash still inside, he gushes: 'It's really incredible! A lost wallet can be recovered! Only in Beijing can this be possible!'

And in another role-playing exercise, tireless police officers manage to pull some people out of a building after an earthquake.

'I can never forget those Chinese policemen that saved my life,' one victim says. 'Thank goodness. Thank you all, Chinese police.'



Beijing police arming themselves with English