"The proliferation of overseas organized crime syndicates into China has become a serious issue for the country," according to the book China's Secret Society, which was released on the 14th October, and drew this conclusion in a chapter entitled "Present Criminal Originations."

The authors, Tan Songlin and Peng Bangfu, believe that organized crime in China emerged from the opening-up of littoral areas and special economic zones, and then extended to the hinterland areas. Their formation was closely associated with the activities of overseas criminal organizations.

Tang and Peng use Shenzhen as an example. Located in south China, the city saw criminal organizations with gang style foundations begin to emerge in 1982. Afterwards, the numbers of such gang style organizations increased as time passed. As the opening-up policy has been further carried out, elements of overseas gangs began to expand their organizations into China. In the 1980s, police hunted down 25 sinister gangs made up of 338 members, which could be traced back to Hong Kong, having names such as "14 K", "He-sheng-he", "Shui fang", "new Yi'an".

These gangs tended to target mainly country dwellers and teenagers in an attempt to develop them as subjects for the organization. Later, some of them expanded their memberships into campuses.

The authors point out that the domestic criminal gangs such as "Sha-jing gang", "IQ gang", "Beijing gang" and "Sha-tou gang" which appeared in Shenzhen began to imitate sinister overseas organizations, with all of them increasing their operations. The main bodies of such organizations are composed of fellow townsmen, relatives and friends. They provoke quarrels and trouble in a certain area to achieve control, inciting group scuffles, violent crimes, and even murder.

The authors pinpoint various and complicated reasons for the resulting domestic gangs in China. The basic reason is that individual members tend to have strange outlooks on world, with little concern for social values and life. Prostitution, gambling, and drug addiction revived after China's opening-up. Smuggling, human trafficking, along with an increasingly transient population provides the ideal breeding ground for these sinister organizations.

These gangs tend to exist in regions where local authority is weak or poorly managed, and is some cases out of control, and where legal systems are badly operated and plagued by serious corruption. They commit severe harm to society and people and must be cracked down on, according to the authors. Otherwise it is likely they will spread and evolve into more serious gangs.

(china.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong, October 23, 2002)