The Idea of Police in China

Kam C. Wong, Xavier University

Abstract

Specialized and professionalized police came to China by way of Japan, circ 1889. Western policing, in the guise of bureaucratic, scientific, technocratic and legalistic policing began to spread and take roots in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after 1979. Given China’s lack of exposure to Western policing it is interesting and useful to investigate into how China comes to police herself through the ages; more pointedly, whether China has her own indigenous conception (or image, or sense) of police? In the words of Deng, what does policing “with Chinese characteristics” looks like, conceptually, organizationally and operationally?