The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Beijing

China will employ drones to patrol for security threats during next month's Olympics, said a state media report that called it the country's first "known" use of such aircraft.

The remote-controlled craft will patrol the skies over the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, where sailing events will be held during the August 8-24 Games, Xinhua news agency said in a report late Thursday.

"It will watch for suspicious activities and transmit photos and videos back to command stations," the report said.

The report only mentioned the drones being used in Qingdao, about 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Beijing, and not in the Chinese capital itself.

The drones were among three dozen other "anti-terrorism weapons" to be employed to maintain security during the Beijing Olympics that were put on display in the eastern city of Jinan in Shandong province on Thursday, it said.

They included remote-controlled bomb disposal robots and battery- powered two-wheel segway vehicles to be used by armed police on patrols.

Armed officers can stand on the segways to ride through the streets, "leaving their hands free to shoot," Huang Shan, a Shandong province security official was quoted as saying.

China has dramatically raised defence spending in recent years in a drive to turn the People's Liberation Army, the formerly peasant army that took over China under communist hero Mao Zedong, into a high-tech fighting force.

Beijing has said possible terrorist attacks were the biggest threat facing the Olympics and has dramatically beefed up security preparations.

However, government critics have accused China of also using the security threat as a pretext to crack down on dissent during the Games, citing a campaign of arrests of human rights activist and dissidents.