In an anti-terrorism drill Oct. 27, police dealt with simulated terror incidents at two meeting venues involving terrorists driving a car carrying explosives into a crowd of people, hostage-taking and “a gathering of troublemakers,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
About 1,000 monitoring cameras with facial recognition functions were being installed in suburban Huairou district, the venue of the leaders' meetings, according to state media reports. The cameras were to cover business areas, gas stations, schools and other densely populated areas.
People will face detention if they fly their pet pigeons or kites in the vicinity of Beijing Capital International Airport to ensure flight safety, according to notices from the Beijing city government and the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The rule had been in place before APEC but was initially punishable by only a fine.
Authorities don't want to be embarrassed by Beijing's notoriously polluted air, so they have ordered some factories to shut down temporarily, demolitions to be halted and cars off the road.
Authorities say the discharge of pollutants in Beijing and its surrounding areas is expected to be cut by a third during APEC.
Highly polluting factories were told to cut emissions starting Oct. 1 and some of them are to be shut down altogether for APEC, said He Ruirui, of the environmental protection bureau of Langfang city in Hebei province, from which pollution wafts into Beijing.
The turning on of the winter heating, powered by burning coal, has been postponed until after APEC in an economic and development zone of Tianjin, a half-hour train ride from Beijing, following a notice from the Tianjin government, according to a woman surnamed Zhang from the service line of the Tianjin Taida Junlian Heating Company. Beijing's heating is due to come on after APEC.
Half the capital's cars are banned from the roads at any one time for a 10-day period that began Monday and ends Nov. 12. Driving privileges are alternating between vehicles with odd and even license plates. Beijing imposed the same restrictions during the 2008 Olympics, which helped herald blue skies.
Government workers get a six-day holiday from Nov. 7-12, but will be required to work an additional Saturday and Sunday to partly compensate. Schools and kindergartens will close, and people will be unable to register marriages.
People are also being encouraged to leave town.
Beijing's railway bureau is deploying cargo trains that can carry passenger cars, so that travelers can take their vehicles with them on holiday without clogging up highways out of the capital. The fees will be roughly the same as fuel and tolls for the trip, the bureau said.
Chen Caiyin, of the public relations department of Ctrip, China's biggest travel agency, said that Beijing's tourism authorities asked them to tempt more tourists to travel during APEC.
She said the company is offering half-price discounts on 15 percent of their routes.
