The political department of the Hong Kong Police in Chill 2 was once one of the biggest secrets of the Hong Kong Police.

In "Chill 2", Aaron Kwok bid farewell to his former colleagues emotionally, and the "first brother" of the police force was full of momentum.

"Chill 2" is very popular in both Hong Kong and the Mainland. As the saying goes, amateurs watch the excitement and experts watch the doorways. For the ordinary audience, the gun battle scenes in the chill and the fighting scenes between Tony Leung Ka Fai, the best actor, and Aaron Kwok, the king of heaven are really wonderful, while the experts think that the details about the operation of the Hong Kong police and government in the film are quite novel and accurate. In any case, this film can be regarded as a masterpiece among Hong Kong films in recent years.

In Chill 2, the "dissolution of the political department" of the Hong Kong Police Force in 1995 is a very important plot detail. The secret operation team organized by Cai Yuanqi, the former police chief of the villain, not only used fake death as a cover, but also had extremely professional combat capability and equipment. In the film, even the famous Hong Kong Special Police Flying Tigers suffered big losses under the hands of these secretive activists. After investigation, the protagonist played by Aaron Kwok found that some of these mysterious operatives may come from the former elite department of the Hong Kong police-the Political Department, while others changed their identities through the dissolution of the Political Department, and continued to receive secret funds from the Political Department for demobilized personnel. So what kind of department is this political department and what role did it play before its dissolution? Why is the dissolution of this department regarded as one of the biggest secrets of the Hong Kong police?

Political Department in Hong Kong-British Era: Mysterious Intelligence Agency

In the era of British Hong Kong, the "Political Department" of the Hong Kong police was an extremely important mysterious department that was deliberately seldom mentioned. Its English name was Special Branch, abbreviated as SB, and agents of the Political Department always called themselves SB when they needed to identify themselves. Fortunately, the network language was not popular at that time, otherwise it would be very embarrassing. At that time, when civilians or ordinary policemen met the agents of the Political Department who showed their identity, their first reaction was to avoid them, because the Political Department was the most mysterious and powerful law enforcement unit in Hong Kong before the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. But strictly speaking, the Political Department of the Hong Kong Police is not a law enforcement unit, but a branch of the British MI5 in Hong Kong, so it is an out-and-out intelligence agency.

Hong Kong Police Political Department has a long history, dating back to 1934. It was not established at the beginning to deal with some political or military intelligence crisis. In 1931, the British MI 5 was reorganized into the Security Bureau, which was officially responsible for the anti-espionage and intelligence security work in the British mainland and colonies. During the same period, almost all British colonies were set up with branches of the Security Bureau. At that time, the Far East headquarters of MI5 was located in Singapore, while the Hong Kong branch was not very valued by the "family" at that time, and was only hosted by the Hong Kong Police Department as an existing institution. This model is not unique to Hong Kong, and Britain once set up a political department in the police department in the colonial area of Malaysia. The reason why we choose to set up an intelligence agency within the police department is to share personnel recruitment and training facilities with the police, and also to facilitate the payment of salaries and benefits. After the outbreak of World War II and Japan’s invasion of Hong Kong, most of the supervisors of the British police in Hong Kong were put into concentration camps, and the political department, as a military intelligence agency, was "specially cared for" and was only restored after the war. Its main function was to examine Hong Kong civil servants who were still working in Japanese puppet agencies during the Japanese occupation period to determine whether they could stay in office.

In 1956, according to the international environment at that time, the British colonial minister put forward new work objectives for the Hong Kong Political Department, demanding that it become the core force for stabilizing Hong Kong. The political department needs to send special personnel to the main departments of the Hong Kong government as intelligence liaison officers, and also obtains the administrative legitimacy basis for undercover to enter major government departments, and the power of the political department begins to expand. In addition, all government departments have the obligation to send their own administrative officials to work in the Political Department on a regular basis, so as to familiarize themselves with the flow of intelligence operations and assist the Political Department in coordinating with other departments.

The intelligence reform in 1956 played a very important role in the later stability of Hong Kong. Without this reform, Hong Kong’s economy and society would probably collapse because of various social movements and riots in the 1960s, which was not only in the interest of the British authorities in Hong Kong, but also ran counter to the strategy of China leaders at that time to take Hong Kong as the external window. At that time, Hong Kong was known as the spy capital of the East. The western world used Hong Kong as a window to spy on the mainland, and the Chiang family forces in Taiwan Province also used Hong Kong as an intelligence window to counterattack the mainland. The bombing of the Kashmir Princess plane against Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was a terrorist attack instigated by Chiang Kai-shek’s government agents in Hong Kong. As a tool of the British government, the Political Department must of course prevent the struggle of various forces in Hong Kong from becoming fierce, so as not to get burned. At the same time, we should also give play to the role of intelligence agencies. We should not only use Hong Kong as a springboard to infiltrate and scout the mainland, but also investigate and eliminate undercover spies within the Hong Kong government, the most famous of which was the Zeng Zhaoke incident that caused a sensation in Hong Kong’s political circles that year.

On December 18, 2014, a 91-year-old man died in Guangzhou. At the farewell ceremony, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader sent a wreath to show his grief, which attracted the attention of many Hong Kong journalists and even international public opinion. This old man is Zeng Zhaoke, who was the vice president of the Hong Kong Police Training School before his death. Zeng Zhaoke was the first senior Chinese official in the Hong Kong police in the 1960s, and served as the personal bodyguard of Governor Grantham. In 1961, the political department of the intelligence department of the Hong Kong police discovered that the star of the police was actually the underground party of the Chinese Communist Party. After the trial, Zeng Zhaoke was sent back to the mainland and then worked as an English teacher at Jinan University in Guangzhou. Zeng Zhaoke has been soaring in the Hong Kong Police Force with great risks for many years, and his contribution to the country and achievements in intelligence work must be extraordinary.

Political Department after 1970s: Cradle of Senior Hong Kong Police Officials and Independent Commission Against Corruption

MacLehose, the most successful governor in history, took office in 1971. During his more than 10 years of governing Hong Kong, Hong Kong society has undergone earth-shaking changes, including the establishment of the famous Independent Commission Against Corruption. Today, when people refer to the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption, they often praise its independence. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is only responsible to the top leaders in Hong Kong, and it has the power like a boss and the means of a Royal Guards East Factory, which undoubtedly conforms to the traditional Chinese thinking mode. At that time, when the whole government was rotten, who was qualified and capable to be the head of an independent institution to fight against corrupt elements who had formed interest groups?

The ICAC needs to deal with the cunning Chinese detective group, which colludes with gangs and is sheltered by Hong Kong and British officials. At the beginning of the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the manpower was composed of three parts: officials dispatched by the Political Department, officials dispatched by Britain and young Chinese with ideals and aspirations. They are led by intelligence officials with many years’ experience in Hong Kong. For example, Sir Dingguo Peng, the head of the Operations Department, is the former head of the political department of the Hong Kong Police Force and the police officer in charge of the Zeng Zhaoke case. None of these three types of personnel has participated in the corruption of the original civil service system in Hong Kong, and the Independent Commission Against Corruption has finally become a model of anti-corruption institutions. Some of the police officers of the Political Department were reused and promoted after the anti-corruption campaign and once became the backbone of the Hong Kong Police.

Li Junxia, the first Chinese Police Commissioner in Hong Kong, is a model among the officials of the Political Department. Interestingly, Li Junxia was one of the two police officers in charge of guarding Zeng Zhaoke in that year. He even has the shadow of the villain Cai Yuanqi in the movie "Chill". Only the police chief from the political department has the opportunity to use the dissolution of the political department to complete his many plots. There are many unsolved mysteries about this "first brother". For example, when he was the Commissioner of the Hong Kong Police Force in 1995, he had a joint venture with his subordinates to buy the Mark Six lottery ticket and won the first prize. Six people shared the 38 million bonus equally. Among the comrades who participated in the equal share was Li Mingkui, then Assistant Commissioner of Police (promoted to Commissioner of Police in 2003). It is of course reasonable and legal to win the lottery. Whether this is luck or another mystery, there are different opinions in Hong Kong.

Returning to the question of the Political Department, Governor MacLehose thought that the external pressure of Hong Kong had been reduced after he took office, and cancelled the routine China intelligence reporting process at the intelligence meeting, and informed the mainland government of this measure, which was positively evaluated. As a result, the Hong Kong Police Political Department began another transformation and became more focused on internal security business. In the mid-1970s, international terrorism showed signs. Considering Hong Kong’s own environment, the Hong Kong Police Force, which has taken precautions, began to actively participate in the anti-terrorism preparations, and the famous Flying Tigers (officially named the Hong Kong Police Force Special Task Company) was established at that time. A Security Branch has been set up in the Political Department to take charge of the security work within the police force and important government departments, and to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and hostile state agents. Because the Security Department is not an intelligence agency, and it is mainly responsible for the internal security business of the government, the nature of its work is relatively insensitive.

With the disintegration of the colonial territory of the empire after sunset, there are fewer and fewer political departments relying on the MI5 branch of the police department of the colonial government. The Hong Kong Police Political Department is a living fossil of the intelligence community. During the Cold War, western countries often deliberately separated the operation of intelligence organizations and public security agencies. For example, after World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States transferred all overseas intelligence services to the Central Intelligence Agency. It is very rare for the Hong Kong Police Political Department to be responsible for external intelligence, internal security and law enforcement.

In 1984, after the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the Political Department began preparations for dissolution. According to the plan, the Security Department will be retained as a part of the Hong Kong SAR Police Force, and the Political Department will be dissolved due to its sensitive status. In 1995, the dissolution of the political department came to an end, and police officers of the security department who had never participated in intelligence work could stay in Hong Kong and even disclose their identities as special agents of the political department. For example, Ma Dezhong, a popular student at TVB, used to be a G4 agent of the Political Department, that is, a bodyguard responsible for the personal safety protection of Hong Kong dignitaries, and he never shied away from it.

Most of the police officers of the Political Department who have participated in intelligence activities have changed their identities and emigrated to Britain and other Commonwealth countries. In 1996, all the files about the activities of the Political Department in Hong Kong were transported back to Britain for storage, and the identity of the personnel of the Political Department and the file information were also protected by Britain. After all, the political department is a product of British colonization and one of the biggest secrets of the British Hong Kong government. In theory, the "shadow agent" of the political department appearing in the chilling film may indeed exist, because the dissolution of the political department itself is an unclear black account. It is a reasonable setting to make a big fuss about the dissolution of the political department in the film.