Deadly terror attacks at home and abroad have spurred China's efforts to develop counterterrorism personnel to confront extremist threats.

Since 2014, the People's Public Security University of China has recruited two classes of 80 students each to major in counterterrorism and receive additional military training in weapons and intelligence gathering.

"We urgently need to train counterterrorism specialists to improve our preventive and terror-fighting capabilities to cope with serious terrorist incidents," said Mei Jianming, director of the Counterterrorism Research Center at the university, which is the first in China to train such professionals.