China's rich seek bodyguards schooled in digital dark arts

Tianjin, China: At the "Genghis Security Academy", which bills itself as China's only dedicated bodyguard school, students learn that the threats to the country's newly-rich in the tech age are more likely to emerge from a hacker than a gunman.

Each day students in matching black business suits toil from dawn until midnight at the school in the eastern city of Tianjin, where digital defences are given equal pegging to the traditional close-protection skillset of combat, weapons training and high-speed driving.

Around a thousand graduate each year, hoping to land jobs as guards to China's burgeoning ranks of rich and famous, positions which can be worth up to $70,000 - several times more than an annual office wage.

But the school says it can't meet demand as China's rapid growth mints millionaires - 4.4 million according to a Credit Suisse 2019 report, more than in the US.

The course fees are up to $3,000 a student; and while they had to cancel training between February and June because of the coronavirus pandemic, it has not dampened demand.

Only the best make the cut, says founder Chen Yongqing, insisting his disciplinarian standards are stricter than in the army.

"I'm quick-tempered and very demanding," said the army veteran from China's northern Inner Mongolia region. "Only by being strict can we cultivate every good sword. If you don't forge it well, it will break itself."

About half of the students are ex-military, Chen says. They train in rows in a large, shabby sports hall, holding blue plastic guns ahead of them with a steady stare - before practising hustling their clients safely into a black Audi with smashed windows.

Other sessions are held in a classroom or gym, where they box in matching red T-shirts. Mobile phones are confiscated throughout, while meals are taken in silence in a large dining hall presided over by pictures of acclaimed graduates, who have protected everyone from China's second richest man Jack Ma to visiting French presidents.

"We have been defining the standard of Chinese bodyguards," said instructor Ji Pengfei. In one class, students in pairs work through a scenario protecting a "client" from an intruder.

"Danger!" shouts Ji, prompting the guard to quickly throw their "boss" behind them and pull out a gun in the same move. Those who fail to do it in two seconds are assigned 50 push-ups.

The guns at the Tianjin school are fake - China outlaws possession of firearms. For live firearms training, students are taken to Laos in Southeast Asia.