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China’s ‘Private Army’ prowls the ‘New Silk Road’
[AsiaTimes] Security demands for multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road projects have led to the creation of independent paramilitary forces.

It has been described as China’s ‘Private Army.’ Fueled by growing demand from domestic companies involved in the multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, independent security groups are expanding in the country.

In 2013, there were 4,000-registered firms, employing more than 4.3 million personnel. By 2017, the figure had jumped to 5,000 with staff numbers hovering around the five-million mark.

Many of these operatives are former People’s Liberation Army veterans, who have been recruited by security companies closely linked to ‘New Silk Road’ projects.

“Like their Western counterparts, most Chinese PSCs employ former soldiers or former police officers, a fact that blurs the line between China’s security forces and private security providers,” a report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies, or MERICS, a leading German think tank, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the United Kingdom stated.

“Beijing keeps the People’s Liberation Army and paramilitary groups such as the People’s Armed Police under the tight and exclusive control of the Chinese Communist Party. However, a booming domestic private security sector has developed since the legalization of PSCs in September 2009,” the study, entitled China Security Project, added.

At the heart of this expansion has been President Xi Jinping’s grandiose Belt and Road Initiative. These ‘New Silk Road’ superhighways will connect China with 68 countries and 4.4 billion people across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe in a labyrinth of infrastructure developments.
Posted by: 3dc 2018-08-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=521193