BEIJING - Police in the Beijing area, including those from four provinces, two municipalities and one autonomous region, have agreed to join hands to fight crimes and maintain security in the region.
On Sunday, police authorities from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning, Shandong and Inner Mongolia signed a cooperative agreement, according to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
"Such an agreement aims to achieve a comprehensive police cooperation among different administrative areas, thus to better ensure public security in the region," said Fu Zhenghua, director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
The cooperation includes joint efforts in intelligence, anti-terrorism, criminal investigation, social security, traffic management and technology, said Hu Aihua, a senior police officer with the Beijing public security bureau.
A regional police cooperative leading group will be set up, and police directors from the seven municipalities, provinces and autonomous region will serve as group members, Hu said.
Under daily routine work, the leading group will hold regular meetings to talk about problems that need resolving through consultation, study the countermeasures and jointly make action commands, Hu said.
When encountering major emergencies, the local provincial police department where the event happened will call the group, which can jointly deploy police forces to carry out cross-regional operations if necessary, he said.
Dai Peng, a professor at the Chinese People's Public Security University, said that growing social mobility in the country requires the establishment of the cross-regional police cooperation mechanism.
"At present, most crimes are regional, because goods and people are often flowing across different provinces or cities," Dai said.
Tang Hongxin, a Beijing-based criminal lawyer, said the agreement, presented in text form and available to read online, is accessible to both police and common people.
"It's a good way to utilize policing resources and address policing deficiencies, " he said.
"This agreement also means a sense of security for local residents and will improve the social stability at the same time," he said.
Cao Yin contributed to this story.
