LOSING THE FATEFUL DISTINCTION:

Military Officer Tied to Killings Is Held by China (JOSEPH KAHN, 12/12/05, NY Times)

The commander of paramilitary forces who opened fire on villagers protesting land seizures has been detained by the authorities in connection with the shootings, an extraordinary response that suggested high-level concern over whether the crackdown was justified. [...]

The decision to detain any commander so soon after a shooting incident is rare in China.

Police and paramilitary commanders have limited autonomy to decide on the use of force against civilians and would generally need high-level approval before opening fire. Even if the commander acted on his own or gave inaccurate information to higher authorities before getting approval, however, security forces would generally be expected to close ranks and defend one of their own leaders rather than accept responsibility for mistaken killings.

It would be especially notable if the detained commander worked for the People's Armed Police, which was reported by villagers to have deployed troops in the area. Civilian government officials generally have no power to detain or bring charges against military officers. In many such cases, President Hu Jintao, who has the top civilian, military and Communist Party titles, might be expected to be consulted before conflicts between civilian and military officials could be resolved.

Since the large-scale killings to put down a democracy movement in Beijing in 1989, Chinese authorities have invested heavily in training and equipping riot police to suppress protests without the use of lethal force. Since that time, shootings of unarmed demonstrators have been unusual.

China had 74,000 mass incidents of unrest in 2004, according an a police tally. While some of them resulted in deaths and a few led to local declarations of martial law, very few involved police or paramilitary troops opening fire on civilians.

Communists above all have to recognize that regimes fall when they lose the will to open fire on those who oppose them.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 12, 2005 8:09 AM