Anyone for a sex video or AK-47?

A FEW metres from the local police station, a middle-aged man in a scruffy, green tunic was quietly going about his business. ''You want girls?'' he whispered furtively to a passerby.

The pimp needn't have worried about keeping a low profile. The police were far too busy selling their standard issue pistols, rifles and handcuffs to notice anything going on in the street below.

The Public Security Bureau Sales Department in Baigou does a roaring trade in everything from shotguns and batons to police identity cards and even bumper stickers.

Business is so good that the town's police apparently do not have time for the more mundane job of law enforcement.

Just around the corner from the Sales Department, a young police officer rested by his motorcycle sidecar oblivious to the piles of pornographic videos stacked up on an adjacent roadside stall.

Pornography is everywhere in Baigou, a small market town three hours' drive south of Beijing. Most stall-holders have ''yellow'' videos, magazines or postcards to offer. Even the car park attendants have half a dozen videos stashed inside their heavy winter overcoats.

Most of the plastic video cases on display are empty or contain harmless material in case the police do make one of their periodic raids.

To get their hands on the real goods prospective buyers are led through a maze of back alleyways off the main street to a small cottage where the porn merchants have installed a television and video cassette player in the bedroom to demonstrate tapes.

But the hardcore sex films screened there are not necessarily the same as the ones being sold to the customers.

One video costing 60 yuan (HK$80) purported to show China's best-known actress, Ms Liu Shaoqing, in an explicit sex scene. But it lasted only a few minutes and the black-and-white film was so indistinct that it was impossible to tell who was doing what.

(Ms Liu has denied ever doing a sex scene or appearing nude on film.) Baigou's pornography industry is vast but even this pales in comparison to the town's weapons market.

You can pick up an AK-47 for just over 4,000 yuan, a standard army issue pistol for 1,900 yuan and smaller calibre handguns for about 600 yuan.

These weapons are generally kept out of sight but a vast array of air rifles, stun guns, machetes, hatchets and flick knives are openly on display.

Vendors are more than happy for prospective buyers to try out the merchandise. As a result the sound of gunfire can often be heard echoing around the streets of this outpost.

Police in Beijing have on numerous occasions tried to close the arms bazaar on the grounds that weapons sold there have been used by armed gangs in the capital.

For example, the guns used in a shootout between outlaws and police in Beijing last year, which left more than a dozen officers injured, were said to have originated in Baigou.

Indeed, everything an armed bandit could want, from tear gas to walkie-talkies is available at the bazaar and several official publications, such as the Legal Daily newspaper, have expressed concern that these items are getting into the wrong hands.

But all attempts to close the market have failed, largely because the town is located at the intersection of three counties and therefore there is no effective government in Baigou to enforce the ban. And what government there is, is making too much moneyfrom the town's booming market to consider shutting it down for long.