The China Connection

6 Pages 1436 Words

The China Connection
How Crime and Politics come together ... again
By John Pomfret


SHENZHEN, China -- Chang An-lo sat down to a sumptuous feast. In front of him, lobster sashimi. To his left, fat braised chunks of abalone. To his right, a massive bowl of shark fin soup with angel-hair rice noodles.

"Big Brother Chang," one of his guests intoned. "It is good to see you so healthy!"

Chang is one of the most wanted men in Taiwan, sought by the island's criminal investigation division for the past four years for alleged involvement in organized crime as a leader of the Bamboo Union gang, a mafia-like organization that claims 15,000 members.

He has already served seven years in three U.S. federal prisons for a 1986 conviction for conspiring to traffic in heroin. But in China he walks free.

Although his activities might be anathema to officials on Taiwan and even in Beijing, the Chinese capital, here in Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, his ties to Taiwan and to potential dealmakers and smugglers abroad make him a potential ally to the rich and the aspirant rich alike.

Chang's presence underscores an uncomfortable issue in a rapidly changing China -- ties between organized crime figures and the Communist Party.

Much has been written about the nexus in Russia of organized crime figures and the oligarchs who grabbed much of the wealth after the fall of communism. China faces the same issues, although its Communist Party remains in control of the country.

The ties were dramatized last week when an official Chinese newspaper reported that Mu Suixin, the mayor of Shenyang, a major city in northeastern China, was under investigation for his links to Asian gangs called triads. Mu has resigned.

A Shenyang deputy mayor, Ma Xiangdong, has already been arrested and accused of gambling $4.8 million in public funds in Macau, a former Portuguese territory in southeastern China that is a hotbed of gangster activity....