Bodyguard demand surges in China

Zhou Jie, from CCG Security, guards a Thai boxer at an event held in Shanghai on Oct 27. The company had at least a dozen clients with annual salaries of roughly 400,000 yuan (46,000 euros) in 2009. Provided to China Daily

"A man ran past and grabbed my client's Hermes handbag," she says. "I ran after him and caught him but he had a knife. I grabbed the blade with my right hand and held him down until the police arrived."

Even after surgery, the feeling in the tips of her fingers has not returned. Yet, she remains philosophical and insisted her job is to risk her well-being to protect someone else's. The salary helps, too.

Chai earns roughly 30,000 yuan a month, more than 10 times the average wage in Beijing, "so we're paid to face danger", she adds calmly.

The security services market is also being boosted by customers involved in the country's property, mining and financial sectors, which are also prone to conflict.

Xu Ming (not her real name), whose family own development firms and hotels, says that, in 2007, she got bodyguard for her son - then 5 years old - after the attempted kidnap of one of her relatives. She says she also received several threatening text messages.

"Most people I meet from the business world have bodyguards for themselves or their families because there are so many kidnappings and acts of violence happening today," she explains.

Coal mine boss Zhang Min (he also did not want to be identified) in Beijing says he hired an army veteran and martial arts expert to be his driver in 2008 as "mining is a dangerous industry and very often I have to carry large amounts of cash with me".

However, many businessmen and women are choosing to beef up their security simply because their competitors are.

China Daily reporters posing as potential customers contacted a man advertising bodyguard services on Baidu, the Chinese search engine. He says he was willing to "slash enemies" and claimed he had "forcefully collected debts" for previous clients.

Luo Ying, deputy manager of CCG Security's Beijing branch, says his company receives many calls from customers wanting "big-built men who can fight".

"There is still a gray area in the industry that clients want bodyguards to use for violence. Some companies don't reject (that kind of) business," he says, adding that there is also a habit of people hiring friends instead of professionals, which means there is a risk they could be untrained or undisciplined.

Zhang Hong at the Chinese People's Public Security University says the current level of social conflicts and crime is "natural" for a country with an economy at this stage of development.

However, other experts argue that the growing number of disputes over home relocations and migrant workers in recent years has exacerbated the situation.

After a spate of shocking attacks on school children last summer, security firms said they saw a marked increase in the number of wealthy families looking for bodyguards to protect youngsters.

In 2009, the financial crisis forced many large factories to downsize or relocate, causing major redundancies, labor disputes or social instability.

Luo says he and his colleagues have been drafted in many times to escort company managers during standoffs with angry or sacked workers demanding more compensation.

Last year was the best on record for CCG Security, as well as for many others, and bosses expect revenues to peak even higher in 2010.

In fact, China's nouveau riche are creating such a demand for protection services that many international firms are attempting to take a piece of the pie.

One of them is GST Security Technique Consulting, a Germany-based company that set up offices in Beijing two years ago and is looking to further expand its operations.

As the firm's general manager Armin Liebler puts it: "No company can afford to ignore the Chinese market right now."