China is seeing a surge in hostage crises. Guangzhou's Southern Metropolis Daily reports that there have been more than 20 cases in the past year, with almost weekly stories of armed kidnappings appearing in the past two months.

On July 7, a young mother surnamed Guo became the victim of a carjacking in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province. Brandishing a knife, the assailant, Chen, demanded 100,000 yuan (US$12,000).

The car was quickly surrounded by hundreds of policemen and thousands of onlookers. After a three-hour stalemate, police fired four shots, killing Chen. But Guo had already been stabbed seven times and died on the way to the hospital.

They police said that they had tried to meet the demands of the kidnapper, even offering to exchange an officer for the hostage. "We would have kept on talking to him if he had not harmed the hostage," said Tang Qinghua, deputy director of Changchun Public Security Bureau.

When asked if there were any professional negotiators in Changchun, Tang said, "All the principal officials from our bureau were on the spot. If I cannot be counted as an expert, surely the other bureau chiefs can."

Tang and his colleagues might have been the best qualified in the city, but they were not professionally trained negotiators.

Earlier this year, 17 of Beijing's finest police officers were handpicked to attend a summer training course in negotiation techniques. They are China's first batch of hostage negotiation specialists.

A well-trained negotiator has a success rate of 80 percent, according to Professor Gao Feng of the Beijing Police Academy, but the current success rate in China is less than 50 percent. Even that rate, he said, is achieved mostly through luck.

During the incident in Changchun, there were too many senior officials and no clear reporting and responsibility system, according to Hao Hongkui, associate professor at the China People's Public Security University in Beijing.

A negotiating team usually consists of three people: a team leader who coordinates everything, a chief negotiator who does all the talking, and an assistant who records all the details of the scene and can take over if the chief negotiator has to be replaced.

The frequent changes of negotiators in the Changchun incident was a big mistake. The negotiator must establish a rapport with the kidnapper to conduct more meaningful communication.

Not all good policemen can be good negotiators.

The prerequisites for a good negotiator, according to Gao, include a wealth of legal knowledge and a storehouse of miscellaneous information. He or she must be extremely sharp, observant and expressive, have quick reflexes and rely mostly on gut feelings. On top of that, he or she must be able to act well enough to convey emotions with verbal and body language.

It all comes down to the moment when the kidnapper asks, "Is it too late to lay down my arms?" and that's the first sign of success for the negotiator, said Gao.

The immediate priority of a negotiator is to dissipate tension. The kidnapper tends to be in an extremely unstable, emotional state and may abruptly resort to violence. But rarely is his ultimate intention to harm the hostage. That gives the negotiator room to manipulate the situation and put the kidnapper at ease.

The main goal of negotiation is to guarantee the life and safety of the hostage, said Gao.

The use of violence against the perpetrator is a method of last resort. Doing so increases physical risk to the hostage, and may also leave psychological scars.

Traditionally, killing the kidnapper, whatever the cost, was considered the ultimate victory, said Gao. But the only international standard for evaluating crisis intervention is whether the life of the hostage is saved.

The shift of emphasis, from killing the kidnapper to saving the hostage, can only happen at a time when there is a public awakening to the value of human rights. But it also puts the police in a riskier position.

The 17 new Beijing negotiators were carefully taught: first rescue the hostage, then protect the police and finally minimize harm to the perpetrator.

Wang said this deviates from practice in Western countries. "The West gives priority to the lives of the negotiators and cops to reduce unnecessary human loss, so negotiations are often conducted by telephone or at a safe distance, but we have vowed to put the lives of the public before our own," said Wang. He said close-range negotiations were much more effective in breaking down the kidnappers' mental barriers.

However, Xi Wei, a Beijing policeman, complained in the Beijing News about what he perceived as excessive emphasis on the rights of the kidnapper:

"Actually nobody is advocating a total ban of using lethal force against kidnappers," replied Wang. "It's just that it should be used with more caution. He may have broken the law, but he should be brought to justice in a court of law. What he thinks and says at that time may well be a lesson and a deterrent for people with similar inclinations. If we kill him on the spot, it will not be a total victory for our rescue efforts," said Wang.

Next year the 17 Beijing negotiators will go through another round of training and some will be sent overseas to hone their skills. In addition, Professor Mei Jianming of China People's Public Security University has invited experts from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for exchanges and lectures. Many of the teachers and trainees in the current program have also been sent to Chengdu, Shanghai and Guangzhou to get more hands-on experience and put theory into practice.

"We are only just starting, and have a lot to learn. We need more cases for analysis. We'll take it one step at a time," said Gao Feng.

(China Daily October 21, 2004)