China deploys radars, drones on borders to curb infiltration

The system is capable of performing round-the-clock, all-weather surveillance of illegal cross-border movements

China has deployed advanced radars and drones in its border areas under an integrated round-the- clock frontier monitoring system to check infiltration and drug trafficking on the Indian border in Tibet as well as in Xinjiang and Yunnan regions.

Many border areas have deployed an integrated frontier monitoring system consisting of advanced radars and unmanned aerial vehicles, Mao Weichen of the Southwestern Institute of Technology and Physics in Chengdu, who designed the integrated system said.

"Our system has been adopted by border defence units in Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan and many other regions to curb illegal border crossings and drug trafficking," Ma was quoted as saying by state-run China Daily.

The institute is a subsidiary of China North Industries Group Corp, the country's major manufacturer of land weapons.

The system integrates electro-optical devices, radars, communications equipment, command-and-control instruments and tools for image analysis, Mao said.

Cooperating with patrol teams, it is capable of performing round-the-clock, all-weather surveillance of illegal cross-border movements.

People trying to cross the border will be detected by the system, which then automatically notifies soldiers, he said, adding that the system can also be used in coastal policing if it is equipped with sea-scanning radar.

"Compared with traditional border monitoring networks that mainly depend on video surveillance, our system has a wider coverage and more deterrence thanks to the use of drones and acoustic weapons," he said.

The system is expected to be more useful at Xinjiang which borders Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Afghanistan to prevent the infiltration of the militants of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Al-Qaeda backed outfit active among Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Recent years have seen a surge in cross-border crimes in China, especially illegal crossings and drug trafficking.

Border defence units in Xinjiang, Guangdong and Heilongjiang have been using frontier monitoring systems for several years, but most of them are closed-circuit televisions that have limited detection capabilities.

"Given that cross-border crimes are frequent, it no longer works to depend on our soldiers to patrol and catch the bad guys on foot. Therefore the border defence authorities are turning their eyes on high-tech apparatus," Mao said.