Immediate Action Unit
The Immediate Action Unit is a primarily counter-terrorist special forces unit of the People's Republic of China.Little is known about it except that it is an elite People's Armed Police unit rather than being drawn from the People's Liberation Army. There are several potential reasons for this:
- keeping the unit out of the military chain of command and thus under political control;
- developing a separate training style unfamiliar to the PLA, in case the unit is someday tasked against rogue PLA units;
- running deniable operations, both domestic and overseas;
- developing technical skills for hostage rescue, which is of less interest to the PLA than to many other national militaries who are more affected by public opinions;
- hiding the unit's actual skill level and competence (whether excellent or poor) from both foreign and domestic observers
Given the challenges faced by the Chinese government in the 21st century, it would not be surprising if the Immediate Action Unit was primarily tasked with responding to internal emergencies of great concern to the national government.