Jim Yardley wrote about the police officers from China who keep the peace over in Italy:

• Italy is a big destination for Chinese tourists, but reports about crime in the European country spread like wildfire on Chinese social media.
• Therefore, under a bilateral police cooperation agreement, China dispatched four police officers from its biggest police department to Rome for a couple weeks during the height of tourist season.
• The official mandate of the officers was to protect Chinese tourists.
• While the officers didn’t have powers of arrest, they were paired with Italian cops who did have that authority.
• For the Chinese government this helps bolster its domestic image by allowing it to talk about its commitment to safeguarding Chinese nationals overseas.
• Italy, for its part, earns several hundred million Euros a year from Chinese tourists and wants to see that grow. In addition to the police initiative it is also considering having some signs in Mandarin.
• This isn’t Italy’s first brush with international law enforcement. Officers from Spain, Poland, and the United States have all done patrols.

Read more here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution