Beijing plans campaign to uncover illegal foreigners

Beijing is to begin a clampdown on foreigners illegally entering, residing or working in the national capital to improve the city's security, according to a local authority announcement yesterday.

The campaign is set to start today and run to the end of August, said a spokesman with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Police will comb communities thought to have large numbers of such aliens and mobilize the public to report them, as well as tighten reviews of visa applications.

Official data shows that nearly 200,000 foreigners are in Beijing every day, including 120,000 inhabitants. Police records also show that foreigners without income, a home and a job are more likely to commit illegal acts in the city.

Beijing police reported earlier that a British man was detained on suspicion of assaulting a Chinese woman along a road in Xuanwumen in downtown Beijing's Xicheng District last Tuesday.

The man, intoxicated on the night of the incident, is a British national in China with a tourist visa. A video recording of the incident uploaded to the video-sharing site youku.com by an Internet user incurred outraged comments from many of those who saw it.