i THE CHINESE MAFIA ii 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 (University of Oxford) RECENT TITLES IN THIS SERIES: Dirty Money: On Financial Delinquency Ruggiero Reinventing Punishment: A Comparative History of Criminology and Penology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Pifferi Taking Care of Business: Police Detectives, Drug Law Enforcement and Proactive Investigation Bacon The Politics of Police Detention in Japan: Consensus of Convenience Croydon Dangerous Politics: Risk, Political Vulnerability, and Penal Policy Annison iii The Chinese Mafia Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra- legal Protection PENG WANG 1 iv 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Peng Wang 2017 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. 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Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. v For Jingyi vi vii 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-le gal 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-state 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 viii 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-legal 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- perpetuating. 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 ix 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,