Electronic Border Shield being built in China

PLA Border Patrol Troops is building an advanced Integrated Border Surveillance System--"Border Information Integration System", which is now displayed in the 80th anniversary Exhibition in Beijing.



（user interface of BIIS）
The borderline of People's Republic of China, maybe the longest in the world and in the most complex geopolitical area. Even the huge PLA border troops, still can not deal with the numerous illegal aliens, drug pushers and even the penetrating Xinjiang minority armed anti-government militants. For those reason, China had been initial to research Chinese edition "America's Shield Initiative"(ASI)--BIIS since 2002 for getting a improved border monitoring.

The technological foundation of BIIS, is the national scale communication fiber network considerably invested by PLA. This network brings a possibility of building BIIS. Now the BIIS is distributed on Military district--sub district--border regiment three levels.



(Surveillance Cam on border)


The first user of BIIS is Xinjiang Military Zone which is under the Lanzhou Combat District. The reason is simple that Xinjiang Autonomous District is the area where PLA has the heaviest patrol duties for the longest borderline sharing with several countries. The demonstrated system in the exhibition showed that the BIIS is a kind of platform integrated with information management, remote sensing, electronic warning, cam monitoring, satellite positioning and patrolling unit monitoring.

Along the borderline, microwave warning and High-voltage pulse warning system are installed. When inducting illegal intruders, the warning signal will be transferred to backward station to highlight the related location. And inland staff will switch the correspondent cam to watch the activities in sensitive directions.



(Position Displaying of BIIS)


Satellite positioning technology is also applied in BIIS to monitor the frontline patrol units. By China's "Compass-1" Guidance constellation, the system can display the real-time location and patrolling routing line of active people and vehicles.



(Message Sending Interface)

The operation system of BIIS also provides multi-ways of information sharing, including sending information to the "Compass-1" terminals used by patrolling units, mobile phone Short messages and intranet messenger



(BIIS used for marine near Fujian Province)



At present, the BIIS system has covered several military districts in Xinjiang, inner Mongolia and Yunnan province, where the most of China's land border are. Furthermore, BIIS is operational in marine near Fujian Province. In Tibet, China has not built such kind of system, because the rigorous condition there is a great challenge to modern surveillance technologies, fortunately, same to foreign intruders.

Technically, China's BIIS is lacking of infrared/night vision surveillance system to guarding active objects and is not multiplex in electronic detecting methods. In different commanding levels, the information integration is needed to be improved, because the commanding headquarter in levels can not simultaneously receive the monitoring information when facing the emergence accidents.

Systemically, the hermetic of PLA makes a truth that the BIIS is based on an exclusive computer network, the result is that BIIS has no possibility to share information with civilian public organizations, like local authorities, police departments and customs.

In coming future, China certainly will use new technologies to enhance the performance of BIIS. If the border troops can be separated from PLA system and open the BIIS network, China will have a brighter future to construct a revolutionary border surveillance system.