At their training center on the capital's outskirts, members of the handpicked the Special Police Brigade punched, kicked and yelled through martial arts displays, showed off their sharp-shooting, simulated a hostage rescue, and destroyed a fake bomb with a high-pressure water cannon.

Yesterday's display for foreign journalists, partly organized by officials handling Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics, comes as the city gears up for an inspection visit next month by the Inter-national Olympic Committee.

A commander of the crack unit, which has 100 officers, specially trained dogs and is the only one of its kind in Beijing, said China's "very good" intelligence-gathering capabilities would get advance warning of any planned terrorist act. He said his unit had contacts with overseas police forces and had visited anti-terrorist police in Britain.

The unit was formed in June 1995 amid government efforts to modernize and beef up China's security forces.

During their martial arts display, female officers hurled their male colleagues to the floor and pretended to kick and elbow them in the stomach.

Tires screeching and sirens wailing, police vehicles pulled up outside a building where pretend hostage-takers had holed up. Officers in black hoods shimmied drain pipes to the top of the building.

An officer attached to ropes then descended face-down from the four-story building's exterior. Another rappelled in through a window and together with other officers they ended the simulated hostage drama.

"Beijing police are putting all their energies into safeguarding public order to create favorable security conditions for Beijing's 2008 Olympic bid," said police spokesman Liu Wei.

(Eastdat.com 01/18/2001)