Taking China’s technology support is the need of the hour

Last Monday, China’s Ambassador Mr. Yao Wen held a farewell meeting with Home Minister Mr. Sahabuddin Ahmed. Mr. Yao Wen will leave Bangladesh in October after completing 3 years and 9 months in his post. During the meeting, the Home Minister and the Ambassador discussed important technical matters.

Both sides discussed security, maintaining law and order, fighting cybercrime, building technical capacity and exchanging training in detail. Mr. Yao Wen said China has trained more than a hundred members of Bangladesh’s law enforcement agencies over the past two years. This training covered cybercrime, public security management, traffic and transport management, immigration and UN peacekeeping missions.

The Home Minister thanked the Ambassador for this cooperation and told him that Bangladesh has taken steps to form a specialized cyber security unit for the police and build its infrastructure. Plans are underway to set up digital forensic labs and cyber labs from the thana, district and divisional levels up to the central unit.

Mr. Yao Wen suggested that Bangladesh send an expert team to China to meet Chinese specialists and inspect labs on preventing cybercrime. Responding to this call, the Home Minister said Bangladesh would send a five member high level team to China. The team, led by CID, will include an Additional IGP, an Additional DIG and police officers who specialize in cyber and digital forensics. This team will study China’s cyber labs and technology and prepare concrete proposals for setting up forensic labs and equipment at home.

China’s support and training in maintaining law and order, identifying criminals and other technical areas comes at the right time and deserves praise. This will help Bangladesh move far ahead in technology. In this age of technology, criminals have become skilled at using it. They commit cybercrime alongside many other kinds of crime.

If law enforcement does not stay ahead of criminals in technology, it will not be able to stop their crimes. For this reason, it is essential to make law enforcement skilled and experienced in technology. China has no real rival when it comes to providing this technology. China’s progress in technology is clear from the fact that it has overtaken the United States in many areas.

A real competition has now begun between these two countries over artificial intelligence, or AI, one of technology’s most remarkable tools. Discussions continue over who leads and who will keep leading. Last Sunday, China and the United States held a long high level meeting on AI in New York. They mainly discussed setting up a system to inform each other if AI risks or security concerns arise. This shows how far ahead China has moved in the AI race.

It goes without saying that China has used AI technology to make its internal security system extremely strong. Criminals rarely escape justice there. The system can find a single offender among hundreds of millions of people. When any foreign citizen arrives in the country, the airport scans all their documents along with their full physical profile.

The system also automatically monitors which hotel, motel or residence a person goes to, and tracks where they go and when after leaving. As a result, no one can carry out any controversial or criminal act without being caught by law enforcement almost instantly. Singapore has a similar system in place.

In our country, law enforcement faces real difficulty identifying criminals, and this takes considerable time. If AI technology could be applied across the capital and other crime prone areas, along with sensitive and important installations, criminals could be identified and arrested much faster. AI has already been added to traffic signals and other areas around Hotel InterContinental and Sonargaon Hotel in the capital.

When any vehicle breaks a signal, AI detects it instantly, and police can quickly file a case or issue a fine. This has reduced the tendency to break traffic signals. Even when the opposite lane is empty, vehicles no longer break the signal and simply wait. This shows the benefit AI already brings.

In the same way, if AI is applied across important areas of the capital to identify criminals, no one will be able to escape after committing a crime. It will record who commits a crime and what kind of crime it is. Law enforcement will then find it easy to arrest offenders, and trials will need far less reliance on witnesses and evidence.

It is worth noting that recently, leaders and activists of the banned Awami League and its affiliated organizations have carried out flash processions and various forms of terrorist activity linked to the return of fallen fascist Ms. Sheikh Hasina to the country. They have carried out sabotage including cocktail explosions and setting vehicles on fire.

Law enforcement faces difficulty identifying and arresting these individuals. Even reviewing CCTV footage often fails to help identify the culprits. It is not hard to guess that such terrorist activity will increase further as Ms. Hasina’s return to the country draws near. The party has already planned to carry out terrorist activity using a hit and run method, which makes identifying them even harder.

According to technology experts, if AI technology is quickly implemented in important areas of the capital, none of the Awami League’s terrorist plans will succeed. Anyone attempting such activity will be caught on AI cameras, allowing for instant identification and arrest.

At the same time, criminal incidents are not unusual around opposition party rallies and gatherings. Among such large crowds, it becomes nearly impossible for law enforcement to identify offenders. Finding a criminal among the tens of millions of people in the capital is difficult.

Given this situation, installing AI technology in important places, installations and KPI zones across the capital as well as divisional and district towns nationwide would make it easier to identify criminals and deliver swift justice.

China is becoming unmatched in the world for its development of information technology. Its progress in AI technology is remarkable. Through technology, China’s global influence has grown stronger. Even a superpower like the United States now talks about sharing technology with China. This shows that no country matches China in technological development.

Given this, China’s interest in supporting Bangladesh with modern technology has arrived as a golden opportunity. This opportunity must not be allowed to slip away under any circumstances. With China’s technological support, Bangladesh could move far ahead of other South Asian countries in technology.

In light of these realities, taking China’s technological support to ensure the country’s internal and international security is now the need of the hour. We hope the government will make full use of China’s interest to quickly implement the technology development steps it has already taken.