Security guards a source of insecurity in China

GUANGZHOU, China — A Chinese journalist was checking out a tip that police had discovered a woman’s body this week when he was stopped by private security guards who beat him so badly he was hospitalized.

His assailants have since been fired, but the incident highlighted a widespread problem in China: undisciplined, poorly trained guards who are little more than thugs and often resort to violence. Many are temporary workers from organized crime groups, or “black societies” in the local slang, that operate throughout the country.

Moreover, companies sometimes use their guards as heavies to break up protests by workers or residents and to settle souring business deals or relationships. Some foreigners doing business in China have found themselves victims of such tactics.

Details about Monday’s attack on journalist Liu Manyuan were murky. His employer, the Guangzhou Daily, reported he got into a dispute at the crime scene with two guards hired by a local district government in Dongguan, a major factory city in southern China.

They hit him for more than 10 minutes, causing severe neck and abdomen injuries, the paper said. Photos published in Tuesday’s edition showed his crushed eyeglasses and massive bruises on his arms and neck. The paper called the assault “wolflike” in a front-page headline.

It was the third case of violence by hired security guards against journalists in the past two months, the newspaper said.

Besides losing their jobs, the guards were fined 500 yuan ($7.30), according to the state-run Dongguan Daily. A spokesman in the city’s police department declined to discuss the case.

Providing security is a lucrative business. Local police own or are major investors in many firms — which may give them a degree of immunity from the law.

Renegade guards are less of a problem in Beijing, the nation’s capital, where fierce competition among private companies ensures relatively high standards, said Qi Fang, head of Beijing Baoquan Group, a security company.

In many other places, the local police have a monopoly on the business, he said. “There’s no competition, so the quality can’t be as good.”

Two levels of security guards exist in China. The best trained are called “bao an,” or those who “preserve the peace.” They must undergo 240 hours of training before getting a license, Qi said.

Those involved in the attack on the journalist were “zhi an,” or those who “manage the peace,” Qi said. Most are minimally trained, if at all.

Some businesses use their guards to try to win disputes.

Staff at many foreign consulates in Guangzhou tell stories about frantic phone calls from their citizens being held in a hotel room or factory by guards hired by their Chinese partner.

Jeremy Sargent, a British attorney who has worked in China for more than a decade, told the story of a European client who had a disagreement with a Chinese partner in Guangzhou last year.

“The joint venture partner hired thugs to literally block the gates of the factory and stop shipments from leaving,” he said. “It didn’t get violent, the police weren’t very helpful, and they did manage to resolve it. But the European general manager was looking out of his office at the barricaded front entrance of the factory. It got a bit scary.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this is standard and normal but it’s not uncommon,” added Sargent, a partner at JS Associates in Guangzhou.

Police are often reluctant to get involved in a commercial dispute unless it turns violent.

Sometimes, guards can turn against their masters.

That’s the lesson Simon See learned when his printing plant in Dongguan decided to lay off 40 guards last December. The company, Main Choice International Development Ltd., was unhappy with their performance and planned to outsource the work to a private firm, which said it could do the job with 16 men.

The laid-off guards protested by locking the company’s front gates and blocking traffic from going in and out, said See, the plant manager. Police refused to arrest them for fear of sparking a riot. Thus began a protracted standoff that effectively shut down operations for days.

“It really did harm to our image,” said See, who comes from Hong Kong.

Labor officials met the workers one by one and, after two days, got them to take a severance payment and leave. See was thrilled to see them go.

Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.