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Sham bomb threats concern stores
By JIA HEPENG (China Business Weekly)
Updated: 2004-12-28 15:16

As the world fights against global terrorism, some of Beijing's department stores, supermarkets and luxury hotels are waging their own war against bomb threats.

Nearly 20 of the Chinese capital's department stores, supermarkets or luxury hotels have received bomb threats since early September.

Only one threat proved real and police successfully detonated that device.

On a number of occasions, police evacuated tthe area while it was searched.

The threats were commonly made by telephone or fax machine.

Local media have reported an outlet of a major electrical home appliance retailer was threatened on December 2; a similar call was made to a Lotus supermarket, in Beijing's Haidian District, on November 28; a threat was sent by fax to an outlet of French supermarket giant Carrefour on November 22; and seven threats were made against small supermarkets between November 12-15.

Meanwhile, US consumer goods giant Amway has received four threats and an outlet of Lotus, in Beijing's Tongzhou District, was threatened on September 12.

Previously, few such incidents were reported in Beijing.

Beijing police have detained suspects in five of the bomb threats.

Police suggest "bombers" make threats for one of three reasons: Revenge against certain stores, to express dissatisfaction with society, or to harm a competitor's business.

The person who was convicted of threatening the Lotus supermarket had stolen a pair of shoes from the store. The store had fined the man 150 yuan (US$18.12).

To get revenge, the man called the store and said there was a bomb in the building. The man has been sentenced to one and half years in jail.

As a result of the threats, department store and supermarket operators have had to contend with lost sales and the financial burden of improving their security.

China Commerce News recently reported a Lotus supermarket in Beijing's Tongzhou District lost more than 200,000 yuan (US$24,200) as a result of bomb threat.

Liu Ying, an official with Beijing Chaoshifa Chain Store Co Ltd, said her firm has invested tens of thousands of yuan in safety measures to prevent against a bombing.

Direct financial losses are only part of the story. Bomb threats could affect a store's reputation over the long term, and might cause its customers to switch to "safer stores," Li Fei, a professor of commerce with Tsinghua University, told China Business Weekly.

Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor with Peking University, said rapid polarization of incomes and social status caused a sense of "disenfranchised" among some people who reacted extremely to express their dissatisfaction with society.

Sociologist Sun Liping, with Tsinghua University, estimated China's actual Gini coefficient was 0.48 last year, leaving the country among the world's most-polarized nations in terms of income.

The Gini coefficient, or Lorenz Curve, is used to show the degree of equality in the distribution of something, usually income or wealth, throughout a population.

Regardless of the reasons for such threats, bomb scares have had an immediate impact on the victims.

Yang Jianfei, an investigative reporter with China Commerce News, recently reported many supermarkets and department stores, which have adequate measures to prevent theft or fire, have neither plans nor equipment to evacuate customers in emergencies.

Also, he discovered, stores' employees have not received training to detect danger and help evacuate customers.

For example, many stores do not buy emergency insurance to protect customers. That leaves the stores open to lawsuits for compensation.

Liu, with Chaoshifa, is well aware of that.

"We are trying to solve the problem (of buying insurance for customers). But we will not reveal when we will buy such insurance, because it is a commercial secret," Liu told China Business Weekly.

Li said in addition to safety measures, supermarkets and department stores must protect their reputations. People who make "bomb" threats generally target stores with poor reputations.

In some cases, the threats are part of a vicious competition between stores.

"Stores must watch their own behaviour to prevent cruel competition ... and industry associations should play a greater role in co-ordinating frictions between different players in the field," Li said.



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