[NASA Test Pilot]

Chinese police begin patrolling streets in Rome yesterday (with Italian police for now) at tourist hot-spots (with Chinese tourists of course) in order to enforce law in Italy. Officials (Liao Jinrong) point to exemplary Chinese-EU police cooperation in the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism. The official announcement was made by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security Bureau Liao Jinrong, Ministry of the Interior (Angelino Alfano) and the Italian national police commander Panza. They go on to say that if it is successful they will expand it to more cities in Italy (perhaps with less tourists).



The Italian Minister of the Interior mentions that Italian policemen may soon be heading to Beijing and Shanghai. For those that have been watching these types of agreements and information sharing have been taking place between the U.S. and Canada for a number of years. This one caught my eye as I believe it is an escalation of things to come across nations as national barriers are further eroded.

The real test will be when the first Chinese Police officer attempts to arrest an Italian national in Rome and use force.

Here is the original in Chinese as well as a link in English.
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/nd/2016-05-03/...8171.shtml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/...ome-and-m/

[rudebwoy]

Interesting news, I wonder what the true purpose of them being there is.

For awhile now, I have been hearing about foreign troops being stationed inside America. Russian and Chinese in particular, based on the above article there could be some validity to that rumour.

[kaotic]

Indeed, it'll be interesting to see how they enforce it.

I don't see any good coming of this, if anything pissing off the locals.

Unless they're really literally there to help protect Chinese tourists, which I think is absolute BS.

The States have had foreign troops stationed here, just a constant rotation of them for training. Just like how we have troops in other countries. Difference is, they don't have bases here.

[GlobalMan]

I think it's inaccurate to link this to eroding national borders. These are 4 Chinese policemen, specifically in tourist spots, with the mandate to help Chinese tourists, who the Italian police struggle to communicate with. Italy has a shit ton of petty theft against tourists, and the Chinese are commonly victims. Having a native Chinese cop be an intermediary to will make things easier. Italy knows where it gets its money from, they'll do these things to make life easier for certain groups.

There are Brit and Aussie Tourist Police in Thailand and have been for years, for the same reasons- there are ton of Brits and Aussies constantly getting into shit and it's extremely difficult to communicate with local Thai police. The farang cops make communication easier, can explain rules and laws, help with filing theft complaints, help get drunk injured idiots medical attention, explain things etc. Again, Thailand, like Italy, relies heavily on income from tourists and will do things to make life easier for visitors.

In both cases, the local culture and that of the visitor are completely alien to one another.

It just makes sense.

It's easy to say everything is a slippery slope or related to a global conspiracy, but this kind of thing has been going on for a while and all that has happened is exactly what was intentioned.

[Seth_Rose]

I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords.

[void]

I can imagine angry chinese tourists argumenting with italian police in english after their purse has been stolen... If we have to adress international imperialism with troops stationed in other countries
1) we should talk about usa, russia, france
2) move to another thread

[Kissinger2014]

I don't worry about this too much. Like this article mentioned, it's more about protecting Chinese tourists. I don't really see any scenario where Chinese policeman arrest Italians in Rome. In fact, these Chinese policeman couldn't even arrest Chinese tourists in Rome. They are more glorified translators / tourist information centers.

[trainwreck]

I think some of you conspiracy theory lovers are overthinking.

Have you ever tried to speak to an Italian police officer past 7pm? Their freaking police stations are CLOSED! Our buddies car got broken into in Genoa (quite a big city in Italy) and there was no police station open until 8am next day!

Nobody spoke English either. Thank god for my shitty broken Italian.

We waved down a police car to get some help and they couldn't do anything either. 1mm person city, no police station open WTF

This makes total sense. Tons of Chinese tourists in Rome, tons of Gipsies and other Eastern Euro scammers and pickpockets active in Rome... Chinese tourists cannot communicate with the Italians because neither speak a common language decently enough, so the Chinese place their own cops to handle these things. IMO not much more than just an open air embassy.

[NASA Test Pilot]

Part of the stated plan is to have more Chinese police officers in other Italian cities (Milan will be starting soon) as well as having Italian police officers in Beijing and Shanghai (for the Italian tourists of course). Recall these are police officers, not uniformed members of a foreign military.

Also in Italy there are a few types of police officers (all under the Minister of the Interior whose office made the announcement) for those who have not been there (it is a great country with beautiful women).

They have Pubblico Ufficiale (all law enforcement officers are considered here), Agente di Pubblica Sicurezza (who have arrest powers), Polizia di Stato, Polizia Locale, Carabinieri (Military police), Guardia di Finanza (a 70,000 strong military corps with a role as police in terms of tax evasion, financial crimes, smuggling, money laundering, international illegal drug trafficking, illegal immigration, customs and borders checks, copyright violations, anti-Mafia operations, credit card fraud, cybercrime, counterfeiting, terrorist financing, maintaining public order, and safety, political and military defense of the Italian borders.), to be complete they also have Corpo Forestale dello Stato (National Forestry Department), Polizia Penitenziaria (Prison Guards, literally Penitentiary Police), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (or DIA Anti-Mafia Investigation Department with members of Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri, Corpo Forestale dello Stato and Guardia di Finanza). The local police forces are made up of the Polizia Provinciale (over 100 provinces) and the Polizia Municipale whose main duty is to enforce local regulations, traffic laws and petty crimes.

This is only one example and part of the point of the thread is to be on the look-out for more of this type of behavior (in various countries) and watch what happens over time; paranoia is generally not healthy (unless they are really after you…).