ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the criminal activities of ‘black societies’ or triad-like crime groups in China and discusses theories about their emergence and resilience. It reviews measures taken to suppress organized crime, including developments in the criminal law and anti-corruption efforts in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and legal reforms in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The main feature of fully-fledged black societies is their reliance on official protection and the adoption of legal business forms. Black societies operating ‘behind the curtain’ have sometimes captured local authorities and challenged local authority of PSB and People’s Court officials. In Hong Kong, triads have long been regarded as “simply a criminal conspiracy that has been given statutory recognition”. The social network approach to criminal groups stresses guanxi. Guanxi defines reciprocal obligations in personal and social networks as the basis of contemporary organized crime. The first PRC Criminal Law promulgated in 1979 defined a crime group as “hooligan activities and groups”.
