Police stepping up patrols near border

More than 7,000 police officers have been sent to villages along China's border ahead of a potentially turbulent period, a senior public security official has said.

They are staying in villages, including those in coastal regions, to help local officials manage site-specific concerns, said Fu Hongyu, a National People's Congress deputy and political commissar of the border protection bureau under the Ministry of Public Security.

The officer deployment to border villages began in 2005 and the bureau will continue expanding the push, Fu said on the sideline of the ongoing two sessions in Beijing.