A peek into China’s top ‘bodyguard factories’ | Hacker News Reader

A peek into China’s top ‘bodyguard factories’

scmp.com

57 pointswallflower33 comments

Too lazy to read the article, but this was a thing in Russia for a long time. The USSR falling apart in the 90s correlated with a bunch of special forces coming back from Afghanistan and then Chechnya. They had no jobs and crime rates were high, so naturally private security companies popped up. Naturally, body guard schools popped up.

I didn't read the article, but I watched a documentary on the Chinese companies, and it seems like they are far closer to the security guard than the "any threat, anywhere" type deal.

Regarding Blackwater and its equivalents, there is a merc company called "Wagner Group" in Russia that recently attacked an oil field in Syria held by pro-US rebels. The US hit them with artillery from a MEC position, and then fixed-wing and AH-64 CAS ran train on them for four hours. The US and Russia initially denied any direct US on Russia contact. So, it seems like Russian "military" PMCs are more expendable, deniable spam when compared to BlackWater/Academi/whatever they are calling themselves these days.

That's not to say Russsia doesn't have the capability, but they prefer to keep their "PMCs" as black units directly under FSB control, a la "rebels" running around Ukraine with radar-controlled machine guns, taking out helicopters on take off, etc.

To tie this all back to China - they haven't shown themselves on that level yet to the best of my knowledge.

A bit of acronym expansion:

* PMC = private military company

* FSB = Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

* CAS = close air support

BBC article on the Wagner group, including attack mentioned above: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43167697

What about MEC?

Couldn't work that one out in the time I was prepared to put into it :)

Marine Expeditionary Unit - the smallest "self-sufficient" deployable unite of the "regular" US Marine Corps. In this case, it's just relevant to understand that its infantry with embedded artillery and air support.

PMCs wouldn't be able to operate in China in the first place. Private Bodyguard/Security services have only been allowed by the govt. since 2010. Chinese govt. won't allow a lot of armed private Chinese groups wandering around. Like aside from there might being some kind of armed rebellion, I think most Chinese people are wary of warlords because those tend to pop up now and then in Chinese history.

> The US hit them with artillery from a MEC position, and then fixed-wing and AH-64 CAS ran train on them for four hours. The US and Russia initially denied any direct US on Russia contact

The whole thing is fascinating. If true - and several sources from both sides confirmed it - the US military killed dozens of Russian combatants in a battle not seen even during the cold war.

There are also accounts during the Vietnam War of US fighter pilots killing Russian anti-aircraft weapons operators, and vice versa.

Could you share the title of the documentary you watched?

The title of this article made my mind go to some very William Gibson places. Vat-grown ninjas and the like.

Is that you Hideo? Did they grow you some new eyes?!

As an early IT job, I worked for a famous boxing promotor who would take end of career fighters and charge them a fee to "school them" into bodyguards and find their first quazi-celeb client. Was fascinating to watch their training at the gym.

It’s also a nice rehab story. Most of those guys end up doing crappy jobs if they had no fall back, and usually boxing was their initial fall back.

Reminds me of this amazing article about boxing "inside baseball": https://deadspin.com/why-i-fixed-fights-1535114232

Basically, most fights are fixed except for big headline bouts. Trainers and promoters can tell from the start whether you're a potential contender. If you are, they're not going to let you get your clock cleaned before everyone's getting paid. If you aren't, the only thing you're good for is building up another fighter's record.

Meh. Seems like anything China-related gets to be on the front page nowadays. I’m sure academies like this are all over the world. Tbh, I’m much more interested in the inner workings of Blackwater type companies that operate in the ME.

Yes there are.

And a lot of reputable ones are actually quite small and discreet (E.G: groupe 9, bba training, ronin, etc)

You will, however, probably not see 6 MIB from those on TV. A body guard that looks like a small athletic woman in confortable clothes is way more sustainable if you need somebody 24/7.

Most people don't need a POTUS level of personnal protection, and a lots of those suits you see are more for show than preventing threats.

Interesting, I've never heard of the preference of female bodyguards. It makes sense and apparently: "These days, the good female PPOs can work all year round while men struggle to find jobs... Such is the demand for women, they get paid more than the men at the moment." [0]

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard-hi...

Why does a gendered preference make sense in this case?

Female body guards are generally preferred for these reasons:

1. They aren't perceived as such, rather they can be mistaken for a partner, friend, or personal assistant. They are therefore allowed into places where bodyguards normally aren't and the attacker doesn't expect them.

2. Some rich prefer a female to guard their daughter or wife so there are no awkward situations.

Also, 3. "A female PPO tends to be better at conflict resolution rather than making the situation worse." 4. "Those bodyguards, the big guys, actually draw attention to the clients and put them at more stress and risk."

(Quotes from the article above)

I can definitely see this, I've known a handful of police officers in my life and everyone says the big strapping men are constantly getting into fights where the smaller women aren't. I'm sure there's a certain amount of the men being more likely to instigate, but if you're an inmate going into jail for the night you're not going to score any points with the other folks in there by punching a 110# female officer.

Also personal protection side, you have the principal (who may be a woman with a preference not to have a male around at all times) and a family.

A unrelated woman is going to fit more discretely into a family situation then some ex-military/ex-police dude or other tough situations.

In some situations, I would imagine that in the case of a real threat that you'd have a layer of visible "beefy" security for prestige and random crazy person purposes, and a more subtle layer for other threats.

The Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was well known for having female bodyguards, they definitely added theatre to official meetings.

If you write for the Daily Mail then they also become 'virgin' for added sensationalism.

(a.k.a. former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, for the title-too-long-can't-parse crowd.)

> Meanwhile, all the local staff got was a bar of made-in-China chocolate

I can understand why they revolted.

What the hell is wrong with scmp’s mobile website. A modal of suggested videos covered the content half the time for me

As a multibillionaire my first concern is absolutely ensuring the loyalty of my security forces. I wonder how the Chinese address this.

One example worth looking into might be the Eastern Roman Empire’s Varangian Guard[1].

This elite force was primarily composed of Germanic mercenaries who didn’t care much for politics - in a foreign land far away from their own - as long as they got paid and could retire wealthy back home.

Conversely, the Western Roman Empire’s Praetorian Guard was composed of elite Roman soldiers, who had far more skin in the game of imperial politics, and occasionally offed an emperor they didn’t like.

So the condensed answer from this historical example might be: pay disinterested professionals handsomely, but maybe don’t expect for them to stick around forever. Not sure how well this advice works in the digital age though. YMMV.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard

This is hard. Governments traditionally do it by having multiple agencies competing with each other to some degree. This was cultivated directly in the USSR, where GRU (military intelligence) and the KGB ("internal" / "less militarized" intelligence) competed with each other. Putin now has a full handful of competing agencies that I don't even want to get started on. Likewise, the US ABCs provide checks and balances for one another - if this wasn't the case, one agency could seize control. The funny thing is that having more of these does protect the constitution, unlike what most conspiracy theorists seem to think.

Despite these checks, in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, guarded by a general of the KGB (Vladimir Medvedev iirc) and his squad was forced to abdicate by threat from KGB higher ups supporting Yeltsin. Later on, the communist party wanted to take back control and ordered "original" Vympel (GRU diversionary unit) to storm the presidential palace with Yeltstin in it. I.e. it was an example of the "checks and balances" working, but Vympel stood down due to guaranteed civilian casualties. Btw, this could have single-handedly brought communism back to Russia.

Anyway, that was a really long prelude to our first point.

1. Hire multiple agencies which would require collussion to take you out discretely. Balanced against more and more people having access to you.

2. Pay them well - though you will never be able to pay them as much as it costs your competition to take you out. Balanced against unacceptable turn-over rate due to dimishing marginal returns of labor.

3. Filter out fanatics somehow. Not balanced against anything, just hard to do.

4. Increase automation. Balanced against privacy concerns and tech-savvy threats. It still comes down to contractors.

* Neither of these terms really applies, except in relation to GRU.

Absolutely on the example above too - one of the best examples of "free-minded" men being loyal...until they weren't for later emperors, but that's a story for another day.

This helps explains why different US services have so much overlap. Like you know what he purpose of the DEA, ATF, and ICE because it's in the title. But I could never pin down why the FBI, US Marshall, or Secret Service would get called in. Media wise, the FBI is the most famous.

I imagine a security automation, basically a drone-army. Serviced only by family members and intensely indoctrinated technicians. Admin passwords passed down from father to eldest son.

link broken. This is good one: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek...

Sunglasses not included

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