Always be prepared
Xiaoying Chen, Deputy Commissioner of Guangzhou Customs, graduated in 1984
Shamian Street, where the famous of the anti-imperialist event in Chinese modern history, Shamian strike took place, is still a street with international flavor today. It is pretty like Ritan Road, Beijing's embassy district, where some States Consulate General in Guangzhou are based. In this street, a small white building adjacent to foreign consulates is exactly the Smuggling Investigation Bureau, the branch office of Guangdong Customs. The European architecture, quiet streets, trees, flowers and lanes, are telling historical stories and legends today.
The branch office of Guangdong Customs is the only subsidiary organ of the General Administration of Customs, whose responsibility range includes 7 customs in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Gongbei, Shantou, Huangpu, Jiangmen and Zhanjiang. The Smuggling Investigation Bureau is on the second floor.
The sun shines into the room, moving slowly on the bookcase, in which the files record all the historical information of smuggle crime investigation from 1988 in Guangdong province. Only a few pages among them would be enough to became the source materials of TV series like Black Hole or Black Ice.
Xiaoying Chen, capable and smart, is always prepared to get into situations or take actions, which fits perfectly to a director of Smuggling Investigation Bureau. The Smuggling Investigation Bureau shared similar functions with Public Security Bureau, like carrying weapons when performing tasks. The difference is that the former focuses more on smugglers. In1998, the Smuggling Investigation Bureau was officially established, led by both the General Administration of Customs and Public Security Bureau. Since January 1999, Chen became half a Customs officer and half a policeman. He said: "We are policemen paid by customs." In brief, he is a policeman, just like Zhenhan Liu in TV series, Black Hole.
Since then, Xiaoying Chen has always been prepared.
Xiaoying Chen was born in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province. He was admitted to Customs Department, UIBE in 1980. After graduation in 1984, he returned to work in Guangdong province. He has been working in The branch office of Guangdong Customs for 18 years. At the end of 1988, he was transferred to establish Smuggling Investigation Bureau in Guangdong province, which is far from his work before. As the founder, he had no experience from predecessors or foreign countries to draw on, thus he had to learn from practice to get prepared as soon as possible.
Anti-smuggling police force, was established when smuggling situation was extremely serious, especially after the serious smuggling case in Zhanjiang. The CPC Central Committee and State Council made such a wise decision related to China’s politics and economy. Prior to this, the smuggling criminals could not be justly punished because the customs only had executive rather than penal power. Some area even unofficially used ‘Become rich through smuggling’ as a slogan to promote economic development. Guangdong province is adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao geographically. With long coastlines, the volume of customs business in this area accounted for nearly half in all China’s customs. Therefore, Guangdong has been the main battlefield fighting against smuggling. The anti-smuggling force consists of about 2000 people, from customs (32%), police (24%), the army (11%) and newly graduates. This team played an important role in combating smuggling as a deterrent force.
Xiaoying Chen introduces that the anti-smuggling police is responsible for cracking cases, breaking gangs and capturing escapees, focusing on combating smuggling. In 1999, they solved 2139 smuggling cases in total, whose total value reached 6.79 billion Yuan, suspected tax evasion, 2.1 billion Yuan and people involved in case, 2354, accounting separately for 66.2%, 63.1%, 53.4% and 59.2% of the nation’s total. From the analysis of cases discovered, the smuggling methods mainly include hiding goods in means of transport, concealing import and export goods, false declaration for tax evasion, smuggling at sea and etc.. Smuggling goods focus on "hot" goods in the market, such as automobiles, refined oil, edible oil, chemical raw materials, textile raw materials, and household appliances.The non-tax items investigated consist of gold and its products, pornographic materials, artifacts, and drugs. Anti-smuggling police initiated investigations towards 1390 people and 293 legal entities. By the end of December, 618 criminal suspects had been arrested and 389 criminal suspects detained. Over the past 3 years, the anti-smuggling police force received a total of more than 6000 cases, with the case value reaching 14.2 billion Yuan, suspected tax evasion, 4.6 billion Yuan and people involved in case, 10200, among whom, 3211 had been arrested, 4200 detained and more than 2000 released on bail. Cases closed reached a number of 2364. Not only customs, other departments like public security, frontier defense, industry and commerce, tobacco all transferred their smuggling cases to the anti-smuggling police force, thus achieving integrated management. Under the heavy attack, large-scale smuggling in Guangdong province was basically restrained. The smugglers could not act recklessly any more.
As branch office of the General Administration of Customs, the Smuggling Investigation Bureau had different functions and was responsible for major and key criminal cases, such as 720 case in Jiangmen, 9932 car smuggling case and a processing trade smuggling case related to 5 customs. Moreover, the functions of Smuggling Investigation Bureau also include directing, coordinating and supervising. In normal times, it should construct better law enforcement environment and gain understanding and support from all aspects, which is of great importance.
The story line of Black Hole is very complicated, but what's more complicated is character's inner world. The current position of Chen is different from ordinary customs posts that he is both customs officer and law-executer with more power. Chen has never thought that the sentences he learned in Chinese class, like "Live in the silt but not be imbrued" would be more than important than his professional knowledge. From smuggling cases in Zhanjiang to Yuanghua, Xiamen, smugglers bribed the policeman with money, which was really startling. After the establishment of the anti-smuggling police force, some smugglers still tried to bribe the officials with money. Therefore, the construction of a clean team is also of great importance inside this anti-smuggling force. In a nutshell, only if the customs leaders resist corruptions, should they achieve success.
From the perspective of Chen, another risk is the danger of criminal law enforcement, which reminds of Zhenhan Li in TV series Black Hole, who deadly battle with the criminals. Some anti-smuggling police have also received threatening phone calls from smugglers, and their families would even become targets of retribution.
New jobs and new business are undoubtedly challenging to Chen, and he has to supplement knowledge related to public security and criminal law. Over the past three years, every case they faced with is completely different. From new situations, he could feel that legislation and criminal law interpretation towards smuggling lag behind the social development. There is still a blank area of the existing law against smuggling cases in processing trade, which makes it difficult to enforce laws. In 2002, the National Commissioner Convention, smuggling in processing trade was set as priority. As a leader, Chen has to understand his work from a macro and theoretical point of view. China's accession to the WTO has brought great challenges to China customs. Therefore, the General Administration of Customs put forward new guidelines: " rule by law; guard the pass for the country; serve the economy and promote the development ", which are new request to customs by new situation. However, how to implement this policy in the field of smuggling? Chen thought that the intention of combat smuggling is to promote enterprise development. Smuggling Investigation Bureau is responsible for both combating smuggling and protecting companies. Combating smuggling crimes equals to protect the interests of law-abiding enterprises and the country. For example, combating smuggling refined oil products did protect petrochemical industry, the pillar industry of China.
Xiaoying Chen was a good student at school. In the 20 years after graduation, he has always stayed at grassroots customs and made achievements. When talking about the career choice of college students, Chen believes that the key is to find your own position rather than choose where to work.
He still remembered that when just entering college, he knew nothing about customs. In 1980, he came to Beijing to study from hometown Zhanjiang for the first time, which took about 38 hour by train. At that time, life was pretty hard in UIBE. As a Cantonese, his most unaccustomed thing was that he couldn’t take a shower every day. In the four-year college, he studied hard, especially in English. Most of his classmates studied in school of foreign languages and their English were quite good. Seeing this gap, he spent most time and effort learning English, which was his greatest gains in college. In 1980, UIBE enrolled 15students in total in Guangdong province, and they all studied in Customs Department and now five of them still working in customs. There were 60 students in Customs Department, mainly from Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, Beijing and Shandong. After graduation, they still met abroad, and attended alumni reunions to find their old classmates.
Good English language proficiency helped him a lot standing out in the work. In those early days, he often attended liaison meetings between Guangdong and Hong Kong customs. The person in charge of Hong Kong customs was British, and Chen was responsible for interpretation. He also interpreted for customs officials from other countries. The foreign trade knowledge he learned in college was also used widely in his work. For example, he had learned some knowledge about GATT in college and was quite familiar with this issue. Every year, graduates from UIBE would come to work in Guangdong customs. In Chen’s opinion, newly graduates tend to set high expectations to their future career, while he was much more simple at that time. He introduces that there is a large stage for graduates from UIBE in Guangdong customs. Fei Pang was one of them, and he was sent to the United States for anti-drug training for western experiences in anti-drug methods could be drawn.
Chen’s favorite sport is playing badminton. He plays badminton about once to twice a week in his spare time. He is also famous for excellent performance in playing badminton in Guangdong customs. No wonder he looks so strong.
Xiaoying Chen, the young director of Smuggling Investigation Bureau, has always been prepared for new challenges.
Later, Chen was transferred to the General Administration of Customs, and served as deputy director of Anti-smuggling Department. During this time, he organized RILO. In 2005, he came back to Guangdong province, and took the post of Deputy Commissioner of Guangzhou customs. Now, Xiaoying Chen serves as the Commissioner of Huangpu customs.
