WUHAN - Cars screeching around corners at high speeds, sniper fire from 100 meters away, hijackings, explosions sounds like a Hollywood movie.

Instead, it was about 2,300 special police from seven provinces and municipalities across the country on a 90-minute training drill in Wuhan of Central China's Hubei province on Thursday.

The drill, which focused on combat skills, field training skills and how to deal with bus hijackings, is part of intensified nationwide training of special police that started this March.

Such training has helped special police across the country improve their capability to handle emergencies and perform tasks together, the Ministry of Public Security said.

Ministry figures show that China now has about 50,000 special police officers. In the past six years, they helped handle about 5,100 violent crimes and rescued 930 hostages in about 700 hijacking cases.

China Daily

(China Daily 10/21/2011 page3)