protest - Riot control with Chinese characteristics

tear gas unit

One of the unsettling experiences of the anti-Japanese demonstration last Saturday in Shanghai was the very different way the police tried to control this urban unrest. As a journalist, also for your own protection, you check what arms both sides are using. You look where the water canons are standing, if there are any dogs, if the usage of tear and pepper gas is likely (and from what direction the wind is coming) and how the arrest units are behaving. Are they part of the crowd, or more likely to act from behind the police lines?

There were enough plainclothes police men around, although I did not realize at the moment that up to half of the 20,000 demonstrators was actually part of the Shanghai police force. (Shanghai has about 30,000 of them, so not all of them were on duty.) But otherwise, none of the usual equipment. No water canons, no equipment that suggested the usage of plastic bullets, tear gas or dogs. Even the very tiny soldiers of the PAP in green uniforms only had their plastic shields.

China does have all those riot control gear, we know from reports elsewhere and not hesitant to use. Perhaps the law enforcement units were so confident they could win this without too much violence. Reports suggest that initially many more real demonstrators were expected and the police force was toned down when only 10,000 materialized.

Books on riot control