People's Armed Police

The Chinese People's Armed Police Force (PAP) is a Chinese paramilitary police force primarily responsible for internal security, law enforcement and maritime rights protection in China, as well as providing support to the PLA Ground Force during wartime. In contrast to police officers in Public Security and other law enforcement agencies, PAP servicepersons wear olive green instead of the blue uniforms of the People's Police. The PAP is estimated to have a total strength of 1.5 million.

If you want to know what people are worried about look at what they spend their money on. If you’re afraid of burglars you buy a burglar alarm. What are the Chinese spending their money on? We’re told from Chinese figures they’re spending on the People’s Armed Police. ~ Stephen Rosen

Quotes

• If you want to know what people are worried about look at what they spend their money on. If you’re afraid of burglars you buy a burglar alarm. What are the Chinese spending their money on? We’re told from Chinese figures they’re spending on the People’s Armed Police, the internal security force is about as big as they’re spending on the regular military. This whole great firewall of Chinese, this whole massive effort to control the internet, this effort to use modern information technology not to disseminate information, empowering individuals, but to make people think what you want them to think and to monitor their behavior so that you can isolate and suppress them. That’s because this is a regime which is fundamentally afraid of its own people. And it’s fundamentally hostile to them.
  • Stephen Rosen, interview with Bill Kristol (30 November 2018), Conversations with Bill Kristol (transcript)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on People's Armed Police on Wikipedia