Asia Sentinel

Photo by Derrick Chang

The early-morning killing in Guangzhou a week ago of a respected neurosurgeon by a rookie policeman has raised a storm of protest against abuse of police power and lack of accountability.

At five o’clock on November 13, Yin Fangming, 43, a doctor at the city’s Pearl River hospital, was talking with a friend when two officers came up to his car. He argued with one of them and started to drive away. The officer fired a bullet through his heart. An ambulance drove him to the hospital where he worked, but he was declared dead on arrival.

The news sparked an uproar among a public already angry about heavy-handed cops who run roughshod in a system with no independent judiciary, no free press and a concentration of power in the hands of the Communist Party. Judges and investigators do not have a free hand in cases involving the military and the police. As in the former Soviet Union and other one-party states, Communist or right-wing, the army and police enjoy a high official status because they are the guardians of the regime. Without them, it would not survive.

This is especially the case in China, where the government regards stability as essential for economic development. “Kill 10,000 and we will have stability for 10 years,” Deng Xiaoping reportedly said when he agreed to implement martial law during the unrest in Beijing in 1989. “Without stability, we can achieve nothing.”

“I do not know how many villains and bad people this officer has killed,” wrote one angry blogger, expressing a common sentiment. “This is not only a loss to the nation and the people but seriously infringes the country’s legal system. We want to see how this criminal in police uniform is held responsible.”

There is widespread skepticism over the official version of the incident   the officers said they were suspicious of the military number plate on Dr. Yin’s green passenger car and asked him about it: he refused to answer questions and drove away, dragging the officer, who was holding the door handle, for several meters. Only then did the cop open fire.

The consensus among bloggers is that, whatever Yin did, the officer should not have shot to kill.

The chief witness, Wang Yanwu, whom Yin was talking to, was taken away by police and remains in custody. The Guangzhou police chief promised a public accounting of the incident once an investigation is completed. The propaganda department of Guangdong province ordered the media to report only official pronouncement and to do no independent reporting of the incident.

Yin, who held the rank of deputy professor, was a graduate of the First Military Medical University and had received numerous awards for his surgery and research work. The hospital where he worked was run by the military until the end of 2004, when it was turned over to the local government.

The officer who fired on Yin is about 30, a recent recruit, who had worked for just three months on a security detail at the hospital.

On the afternoon of November 16, more than 100 of Yin’s colleagues held a memorial service on the hospital’s basketball court. “We do not fear medical emergencies but we fear for our own lives,” said one long-serving nurse. “No-one is safe now. They must clear the good name of Doctor Yin.”

Controversial police shootings and gratuitous beatings are hardly a rarity. Last Friday (November 16) a court in Henan province heard a case in which six officers took an unemployed worker to the local station in September 2004, beat him up and threw him out of a third-floor window to his death. He had been in an argument with an official of a law court. The case was first presented as a suicide but was finally prosecuted this year. One officer was sentenced to death, one got a suspended life sentence and the third life imprisonment.

The police also have their representative at the pinnacle of political power, in Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang, chosen as one of the nine members of the standing committee of the ruling Politburo in October. He is also the first party secretary of the People’s Armed Police, a nationwide paramilitary organization under military control that complements the police and the army.

Police in China, then, operate in the knowledge that they have the full backing of the government and the party and are rarely vulnerable to challenge by the public.

As a result, many Chinese regard them with a mixture of fear and disgust. “One policeman more, one hoodlum less,” is a common saying.

Comments (1)

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written by John Kennedy, November 22, 2007

Love to see bloggers' views, thanks for that, Mark. I think it needs to be pointed out, however, that the hospital Yin worked for was made notorious several years ago for running a miracle cure scam which led to the deaths of a number of terminally sick children. I'm not surprised to see it said that he was highly respected, but I do wonder where those medals came from.

I also see some missing details. My understanding is that both the front and back license plates of the vehicle Yin was driving were covered up, just one of the several illegal methods that those marginally in the military system—as well as many civilians—here in Guangzhou attempt in order to receive the privilege and benefits that military status brings. It's also said as Yin was resisting arrest, which is what dragging a police officer alongside your vehicle would suggest to me, he had snatched the officer's police badge, refused to give it back, and then proceeded to drive off. There's also the second shot which I don't see mentioned above which, as Chinese police must either give a warning shot or being in a life-or-death situation before they are allowed to fire on people—although this is the PLA we're talking about—is, if you believe statements made to the local press, possibly the only reason there hasn't been any retaliation, assuming that this time there hasn't.

I know that prior to the Central Propaganda Department statement that was run in local press, at least Southern Metropolis Daily had done a story on the incident, and it essentially backed the officer in question. When talking about abuse of power and lack of accountability, I wouldn't be so quick to equate Guangzhou's civilian police force—which, despite its many problems is in fact increasingly accountable these days, all neighborhood stations now required to have one full wall made entirely of glass, for example—with the completely non-transparent PLA, which Yin either was or was attempting to appear as. Zhou Yongkang is certainly responsible for frequent human and civil rights violations, but at least the public knows who he is..

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