(PresidentialInsider.com)- Beijing has ordered that police be sent to all Chinese schools to serve as vice principals for “security reasons.”
In a notice from China’s Ministry of Education in early June, the Party is requiring all Chinese schools to appoint a police officer as vice principal to “promote the rule of law and education” while ostensibly tackling “bullying” and school violence.
The notice was circulated on Chinese social media, prompting widespread criticism from users decrying the “police state” actions.
According to Feng Chongyi, a China expert from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, the police-as-vice-principal rule is another example of how Beijing seeks to maintain political stability and control over the people.
When Beijing says “security reasons,” what the regime means isn’t the security of teachers and students, Feng explained, it is the security of the regime. The purpose of the police is to tamp down resistance from the people through violence.
Ordering police into schools is quite a change from the early days after the Chinese Communist Party came to power, Feng told The Epoch Times. Early on, police were removed from campuses because academic freedom was “regarded as a marker of civilization.” He said now Beijing’s return to methods is “terrifying.” To maintain its one-party rule, the CCP is building a “comprehensive police state,” Feng said.
The Epoch Times spoke with legal experts in China anonymously who agreed with Feng’s assessment. One doctor of law said the move would place control of schools into the hands of the police, which in turn would mean the Party would have total control.
A lawyer in mainland China told the Epoch Times that even before this rule was announced, the police were already contacting every school in their jurisdiction. The only change is now one police officer will be named “vice principal.”
This lawyer told the Epoch Times that the claims of violence in schools are overblown and are only being used as a pretext to place the schools under the authority of the police so they can “threaten and monitor” teachers and students.
