Community policing in China: old wine in new bottles

Policing in China is by nature in the community, for the community, and by the community, as manifested in the ‘mass line’. With crime soaring and fear of crime growing in the reform era, policing in China encountered numerous challenges, and community policing was imported from the West. This paper first delineated the history of policing in China since 1949 and then used an example to illustrate what community policing is and how it could be implemented in China. It argued that community policing per se in China since 2002 is no more than ‘old wine in new bottles.’