The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection

273 Pages·2017·1.417 MB·English

by  WANG, PENG

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THE CHINESE MAFIA
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CLARENDON STUDIES IN CRIMINOLOGY
Published under the auspices of the Institute of Criminology,
University of Cambridge; the Mannheim Centre, London School of
Economics; and the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford.
General Editors: Jill Peay and Tim Newburn
(London School of Economics)
Editors: Loraine Gelsthorpe, Alison Liebling, Kyle Treiber,
and Per- Olof Wikström
(University of Cambridge)
Coretta Phillips and Robert Reiner
(London School of Economics)
Mary Bosworth, Carolyn Hoyle, Ian Loader, and Lucia Zedner
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The Chinese Mafia
Organized Crime, Corruption,
and Extra-l egal Protection
PENG WANG
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For Jingyi
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General Editors’ Introduction
Clarendon Studies in Criminology aims to provide a forum for
outstanding empirical and theoretical work in all aspects of crimi-
nology and criminal justice, broadly understood. The Editors
welcome submissions from established scholars, as well as excel-
lent PhD work. The Series was inaugurated in 1994, with Roger
Hood as its first General Editor, following discussions between
Oxford University Press and three criminology centres. It is edited
under the auspices of these three centres: the Cambridge Institute
of Criminology, the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the
London School of Economics, and the Centre for Criminology at
the University of Oxford. Each supplies members of the Editorial
Board and, in turn, the Series Editor or Editors.
Peng Wang’s book The Chinese Mafia:  Organised Crime,
Corruption and Extra-l egal Protection, based on his PhD thesis
from King’s College London, gives an insight into what the world
might look like if the rule of law was only partially operational, or
indeed, broke down altogether. The need for extra- legal protection
and enforcement becomes evident. Wang’s book is not the first to
explore these issues. Gambetta’s (1993) The Sicilian Mafia traced
the role of a weak state, a weak judicial system, rampant corruption
and an urgent need to protect private property rights as the precur-
sors to the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia. Varese’s (2001) study of
the Russian Mafia documented similar themes. But Wang’s book is
based in China, where the authoritarian party-s tate is strong, albeit
seemingly not strong enough to resist the rise of a Chinese Mafia,
or protect its own government officials. Peng Wang is the first to
offer a scholarly account of the rise of the Chinese Mafia in the post
Mao- era. This is not a historical study of Chinese secret societies,
like the Shanghai Green Gang, or of the Triads. It is a contemporary
study of the collusion between organized crime and state corrup-
tion. And one that was conducted at a time of massive economic
expansion in China, and during a period when China was reaching
out to world. The financial gains to be made were spectacular.
Through the use of published materials and his careful empiri-
cal work based on interviews and focus group discussions in two
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viii General Editors’ Introduction
Chinese cities, Qufu and Chongqing, Wang documents two major
types of extra- legal networks, those of the Black Mafia and the
Red Mafia. He traces the distinctions between them and charts the
important role to both of guanxi: a Chinese variant on the con-
cept of social capital, which manifests itself in a network of secret
secure channels to frustrate criminal investigation and forestall
punishment. The Black Mafia, essentially a street- gang based or-
ganisation, are more in keeping with stereotypical understandings
of the mafia with an emphasis on the use of threats and violence
to provide extra-l egal protection. The Red Mafia embrace corrupt
government networks, and facilitate private protection through
the abuse of power, albeit they are partially reliant on the Black
Mafia for enforcement. Wang documents how the Red Mafia have
also begun to infiltrate and commandeer organised crime groups
generally. Both ‘Red and Black’ are supported by guanxi, which
parallels the legal system; guanxi both supplants the rule of law
and promotes corrupt networks between criminals and govern-
ment officials.
The nexus between the Red and Black Mafia is essential to both
protection and enforcement activities. Whilst visible, these pro-
cesses are neither transparent nor open; tangible and intangible
reciprocity between officials and criminals ensures continuity, but
it is self-p erpetuating. It is therefore of some small comfort that
Wang asserts that there is no evidence to show that ‘criminal or-
ganisations have established mutually beneficial networks with
top politicians.’ Indeed, the Chinese government have organised a
series of campaigns to tackle the Red Mafia, and the latest initia-
tive, under President Xi Jinping, is, as Wang acknowledges, multi-
faceted and long- term, targeting both high ranking and junior offi-
cials. Yet even these initiatives appear doomed to fail, as their focus
on the swiftness and severity of punishment both undermines due
process and fails to emphasise certainty of punishment through its
selective approach. Some are favoured, some are not. And as crimi-
nologists know from studies of incapacitation, creating a vacuum
by removing deviant elements can simply free- up space for new
illegal activity. Tackling corruption is enormously complex, and, as
Wang argues, arguably more so within a one- party state.
The guanxi network also twists the theory of property rights
as the key factor underlying the emergence of the Chinese mafias
to focus on the role of economic factors and their embeddedness
in domestic social structural contexts. Visible social relations are
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General Editors’ Introduction ix
critical. It is, of course, curious as to why businesses that do not
trust the available formal legal protections would trust crimi-
nal groups to provide reliable services. However, Wang explains
why and how the guanxi networks facilitate trust, organize rec-
ognised markets and prevent extortion by government officials
by using the conduit of street gangs in whom ‘personal affection’
and ‘friendship’ have been invested. These, in turn, provide reli-
able methods of debt collection when official routes cannot. Wang
carefully documents the extent and reach of these activities, from
the distribution of public appointments to the protection of illegal
entrepreneurs; or as he puts it ‘the buying and selling of public
appointments (maiguan maiguan), the collusion between public
officials and businesspeople (guanshang goujie), and the nexus
between law enforcers and gangsters (guanfei yijia)’. Illustrations
in his book cover, for example, the buying and selling of military
positions; the political business alliances between senior public of-
ficials and business elites; and the hybrids of hospital staff and
criminal groups who, under the guise of hospital security, repel
aggrieved patients, relatives and their personal enforcers. Thus do
Tian’an (for the hospital) confront Yi Nao (for the victims). Where
trust between doctors and patients has broken down, the smooth
running a hospital would be jeopardized without ‘security’. But
it is a ‘security’ for which hospitals pay extortionate – in the true
sense of the word –  rates.
Gaining an understanding of organized crime facilitated by public
corruption in China would be beyond most criminologists without
this study in the Clarendon Series. As Wang explains, whilst the
multi- dimensional nature of organised crime has been previously
explored, his focus on Chinese mafia practices is unique. It is the
detail of his case studies which is so powerful, and the documenting
of a shift from hard to soft violence which is so chilling. The former
can be dealt with officially; the latter, with its psychological trauma
for victims, proves largely beyond redress by the state and is thus
most cost-e ffective to those who employ it. And whilst many PhD
students will bemoan the difficulties of conducting their research,
Wang merely observes that although working in his small home
city enabled access, via his family’s guanxi networks, to the ‘street-
gang’ elements of his research, the examination of corrupt officials
had to be conducted in the much larger city of Chongqing with its
30 million population. Fears for his safety, and that of his family,
necessitated this. A telling moment in his introduction.