
A peek into China’s top ‘bodyguard factories’ - wallflower
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek-chinas-swashbuckling-bodyguard-factories-and-their
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madeuptempacct
Too lazy to read the article, but this was a thing in Russia for a long time.
The USSR falling apart in the 90s correlated with a bunch of special forces
coming back from Afghanistan and then Chechnya. They had no jobs and crime
rates were high, so naturally private security companies popped up. Naturally,
body guard schools popped up.

I didn't read the article, but I watched a documentary on the Chinese
companies, and it seems like they are far closer to the security guard than
the "any threat, anywhere" type deal.

Regarding Blackwater and its equivalents, there is a merc company called
"Wagner Group" in Russia that recently attacked an oil field in Syria held by
pro-US rebels. The US hit them with artillery from a MEC position, and then
fixed-wing and AH-64 CAS ran train on them for four hours. The US and Russia
initially denied any direct US on Russia contact. So, it seems like Russian
"military" PMCs are more expendable, deniable spam when compared to
BlackWater/Academi/whatever they are calling themselves these days.

That's not to say Russsia doesn't have the capability, but they prefer to keep
their "PMCs" as black units directly under FSB control, a la "rebels" running
around Ukraine with radar-controlled machine guns, taking out helicopters on
take off, etc.

To tie this all back to China - they haven't shown themselves on that level
yet to the best of my knowledge.

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noelwelsh
A bit of acronym expansion:

* PMC = private military company

* FSB = Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

* CAS = close air support

BBC article on the Wagner group, including attack mentioned above:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
europe-43167697](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43167697)

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clojurestan
What about MEC?

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madeuptempacct
Marine Expeditionary Unit - the smallest "self-sufficient" deployable unite of
the "regular" US Marine Corps. In this case, it's just relevant to understand
that its infantry with embedded artillery and air support.

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bitwize
The title of this article made my mind go to some very William Gibson places.
Vat-grown ninjas and the like.

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madeuptempacct
Is that you Hideo? Did they grow you some new eyes?!

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digitalneal
As an early IT job, I worked for a famous boxing promotor who would take end
of career fighters and charge them a fee to "school them" into bodyguards and
find their first quazi-celeb client. Was fascinating to watch their training
at the gym.

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mc32
It’s also a nice rehab story. Most of those guys end up doing crappy jobs if
they had no fall back, and usually boxing was their initial fall back.

~~~
smogcutter
Reminds me of this amazing article about boxing "inside baseball":
[https://deadspin.com/why-i-fixed-fights-1535114232](https://deadspin.com/why-
i-fixed-fights-1535114232)

Basically, most fights are fixed except for big headline bouts. Trainers and
promoters can tell from the start whether you're a potential contender. If you
are, they're not going to let you get your clock cleaned before everyone's
getting paid. If you aren't, the only thing you're good for is building up
another fighter's record.

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lgvln
Meh. Seems like anything China-related gets to be on the front page nowadays.
I’m sure academies like this are all over the world. Tbh, I’m much more
interested in the inner workings of Blackwater type companies that operate in
the ME.

~~~
sametmax
Yes there are.

And a lot of reputable ones are actually quite small and discreet (E.G: groupe
9, bba training, ronin, etc)

You will, however, probably not see 6 MIB from those on TV. A body guard that
looks like a small athletic woman in confortable clothes is way more
sustainable if you need somebody 24/7.

Most people don't need a POTUS level of personnal protection, and a lots of
those suits you see are more for show than preventing threats.

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air7
Interesting, I've never heard of the preference of female bodyguards. It makes
sense and apparently: "These days, the good female PPOs can work all year
round while men struggle to find jobs... Such is the demand for women, they
get paid more than the men at the moment." [0]

[0] [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard-
hi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard-high-profile-
celebrities-women-protection-security-threats-david-cameron-tony-
blair-a7688541.html)

~~~
pc86
Why does a gendered preference make sense in this case?

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madeuptempacct
Female body guards are generally preferred for these reasons:

1\. They aren't perceived as such, rather they can be mistaken for a partner,
friend, or personal assistant. They are therefore allowed into places where
bodyguards normally aren't and the attacker doesn't expect them.

2\. Some rich prefer a female to guard their daughter or wife so there are no
awkward situations.

~~~
air7
Also, 3\. "A female PPO tends to be better at conflict resolution rather than
making the situation worse." 4\. "Those bodyguards, the big guys, actually
draw attention to the clients and put them at more stress and risk."

(Quotes from the article above)

~~~
pc86
I can definitely see this, I've known a handful of police officers in my life
and everyone says the big strapping men are constantly getting into fights
where the smaller women aren't. I'm sure there's a certain amount of the men
being more likely to instigate, but if you're an inmate going into jail for
the night you're not going to score any points with the other folks in there
by punching a 110# female officer.

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imron
> Meanwhile, all the local staff got was a bar of made-in-China chocolate

I can understand why they revolted.

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josephpmay
What the hell is wrong with scmp’s mobile website. A modal of suggested videos
covered the content half the time for me

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swayvil
As a multibillionaire my first concern is absolutely ensuring the loyalty of
my security forces. I wonder how the Chinese address this.

~~~
madeuptempacct
This is hard. Governments traditionally do it by having multiple agencies
competing with each other to some degree. This was cultivated directly in the
USSR, where GRU (military intelligence) and the KGB ("internal" / "less
militarized" intelligence __) competed with each other. Putin now has a full
handful of competing agencies that I don 't even want to get started on.
Likewise, the US ABCs provide checks and balances for one another - if this
wasn't the case, one agency could seize control. The funny thing is that
having more of these does protect the constitution, unlike what most
conspiracy theorists seem to think.

Despite these checks, in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, guarded by a general of the
KGB (Vladimir Medvedev iirc) and his squad was forced to abdicate by threat
from KGB higher ups supporting Yeltsin. Later on, the communist party wanted
to take back control and ordered "original" Vympel (GRU diversionary unit) to
storm the presidential palace with Yeltstin in it. I.e. it was an example of
the "checks and balances" working, but Vympel stood down due to guaranteed
civilian casualties. Btw, this could have single-handedly brought communism
back to Russia.

Anyway, that was a really long prelude to our first point.

1\. Hire multiple agencies which would require collussion to take you out
discretely. Balanced against more and more people having access to you.

2\. Pay them well - though you will never be able to pay them as much as it
costs your competition to take you out. Balanced against unacceptable turn-
over rate due to dimishing marginal returns of labor.

3\. Filter out fanatics somehow. Not balanced against anything, just hard to
do.

4\. Increase automation. Balanced against privacy concerns and tech-savvy
threats. It still comes down to contractors.

* Neither of these terms really applies, except in relation to GRU.

Absolutely on the example above too - one of the best examples of "free-
minded" men being loyal...until they weren't for later emperors, but that's a
story for another day.

~~~
yardie
This helps explains why different US services have so much overlap. Like you
know what he purpose of the DEA, ATF, and ICE because it's in the title. But I
could never pin down why the FBI, US Marshall, or Secret Service would get
called in. Media wise, the FBI is the most famous.

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rodneyzeng
link broken. This is good one:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2102703/peek-
chinas-swashbuckling-bodyguard-factories-and-their)

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mlrtime
Sunglasses not included _

