Talk:China

Different types of police
Why is it useful for travellers to understand the differences between different types of police? The text in the article doesn't give any indication of how someone would use this information, and in more than two years in China, the only time I had to worry about what kind of police I was talking to was when going to the PSB for registration. I would assume travellers should act the same way around all police – should I act differently around PAP compared to PSB police? Is it only okay to ask some types of police for help and not others? —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's important to know the details about the differences, but since both the PSB and PAP have law enforcement powers, I think it is useful for tourists to be able to recognise both of them by their uniforms. If you look at our articles on the United States of America, Canada and Australia, we also describe the different kinds of police you are likely to encounter. If you are the victim of a crime, it is certainly helpful to know what uniforms police officers wear so you can approach them for help. And also, if one type of security officer is more likely to be professional and less likely to be corrupt than another, it is certainly helpful for tourists to know that when they need to seek help. The dog2 (talk) 22:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay, makes sense. I think the section may be more detailed than necessary but I can see the value of what you're saying. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've tried to make some tweaks to focus on what is important for travellers to know. 廣九直通車 was the one who originally wrote that section, so I'm also pinging him here to have a look and give his opinion. The dog2 (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the current version still isn't very helpful. The section says that private security officers dress similarly to the police and that the city police wear uniforms varying by city – I guess some of them have peaked caps and blue shirts like the civilian police (although not identical ones). I would like some definite way of recognising the "helpful and professional" corps, such as (I assume) images of their badges.
 * What about other people in uniform, such as bus and train station officials, are they also helpful? What about private security guards? I assume the city police should be avoided, and probably private security guards in some contexts A discussion on this would be useful: if you need help and see a uniformed person, when should you approach them and when should you turn elsewhere?
 * –LPfi (talk) 06:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oops, I didn't see "the characters 中国武警 at the top of the insignia patch on their left sleeve". A bit difficult for those not reading Chinese, but still something. –LPfi (talk) 06:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are good pictures of Chengguan on Wikimedia commons. Chengguan have some law enforcement responsibilities, but aren't actually police officers and aren't allowed to arrest people. They mainly do things like asking street hawkers to move when they are blocking the way. Unfortunately, there have been incidents of Chengguan using violence to get these street hawkers to move, including at least one where the hawker was beaten to death.


 * Since you live in China, would you by any chance have a good photo of a Chengguan officer that we could use so people can recognize them? The dog2 (talk) 11:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I wouldn't normally take photos of law enforcement officers but I happen to have a friend who works as a Chengguan officer so perhaps I may be able to get a photo of him in uniform later. I'll let you know if I do. He works in another city, so it may be a while before I see him. STW932 (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * And by the way, what's your view on the way the section on law enforcement is written? I don't think we should paint a board stroke over all Chengguan, because there are certainly good ones as well, but it seems that there are more complaints about chengguan brutality than public security police brutality. Also, do you have advice on how can an English-speaking foreigner communicate with police officers if they need help? It's hard for me to give advice on this because I speak Chinese so I don't have the communication issue that most Western tourists visiting China will have. The dog2 (talk) 12:59, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In general I don't have a problem with the way that section is written but I too wonder whether we could reword the paragraph about Chengguan slightly so as not to appear to be painting them with a broad brush, though it's certainly true that Chengguan have a bad reputation. Regarding your last question, I speak Chinese too, having learnt the language back in the 1990s, and I'm not sure what I'd do if I didn't except maybe get help from friends and colleagues. STW932 (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * When I lived in Shenzhen, a couple of non-Chinese-speaking family members visited me, and they had some success using Google Translate to communicate with store clerks etc. Something like that might work for asking police for help too, at least in simple situations. —Granger (talk · contribs) 06:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This might be a bit antithetical and feel free to ignore, but should we specifically recommend certain translation apps that are more accurate than others? For Italian, per se, I wouldn't hesitate to use DeepL even though it can produce some mistakes, but as someone who knows almost zero Chinese, I would feel left in the dark if I had to interact with police with the advice simply being use online translation (or something similar – I think you get what I mean). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 07:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the development in this field is quite rapid, so our recommendations may miss current developments. There is also a risk that the tools that are best at translating have other problems, such as spying on you and your environment. I would prefer to use more general language on translation apps, such as pointing out common pitfalls, which one might be able to check for or at least watch out for. This might be best done in a travel topic article on such apps (perhaps also touching on machine translated material – I note many Finnish sites have substituted their English pages with a link to a translation engine). –LPfi (talk) 08:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess we could do a bit of both? From what I've heard, Google Translate does a rather funky job when translating between English and Chinese (which is why I'm not fond of overly vague wording). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)