About 1.84 million criminal cases were solved by Chinese policemen last year, or 41.8 percent of the total 4.89 million filed criminal cases, said Zhang Xinfeng, assistant minister of Public Security on Thursday.

"Considering some criminal cases could not be put on file properly or in time, China's criminal case clear-up rate last year was only around 30 percent," said Zhang Xinfeng.

Zhang made the remark during a video telephone conference, which was held here for mobilizing policemen nationwide to unremittingly improve their abilities in cracking criminal cases.

"Although some achievements have been scored by policemen in safeguarding social stability and ensuring people a peaceful life, it should be soberly noticed that a gap exists between people's high expectation and policemen's performance in dealing with criminal cases," said Zhang.

Besides the low clear-up rate of criminal cases, other problems also exist, such as some criminal suspects and underworld members were still at large, some law enforcement staff still brutally punished criminal suspects on trial or unlawfully prolonged criminals' custody term and some policemen even collaborated with criminals, said Zhang.

Last year, 39 Chinese policemen lost their lives and 2,676 were injured in the line of duty. "Their loyalty to the people and career should be cherished, but the large number of deaths and injuries should be partially blamed for policemen's poor physical quality and slack physical exercises," said Zhang.

The Ministry of Public Security launched a physical test for 394 policemen in provinces and municipalities of Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Tianjin last year and found 70 percent of them could not meet the ministry's physical stamina standards.

The ministry also randomly picked 400 front-line policemen to receive a medical check last year, finding 30 percent of them suffered cardiovascular diseases, 40 percent suffered high blood pressure or hyperlipaemia, 30 percent had gastroenteric diseases and 16 percent had hepatitis.

Policemen's spot investigation ability was also weak, said Zhang, adding that policemen only successfully acquired criminals' fingerprints at the scene in less than 10 percent of the last year's 4.39 million criminal cases.

In a bid to improve policemen's physical quality and investigation ability, the Ministry of Public Security launched an intensive course for policemen nationwide, which included physical training and investigation techniques teaching.

Later this year, the ministry will dispatch several inspection teams to different places for checking the training results.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2004)