ORGANIZED CRIME

During Mao's rule China was organized into communes, township units and neighborhood "committees." Such intimate social controls kept organized crime to a minimum. The market reforms introduced in the late 1970s, however, changed China's social structure, allowing new and old forms of organized crime to flourish. The relaxation of governmental controls, the boom atmosphere of the new special economic zones and growing incidents of official corruption have all contributed to rising crime rates.

Triads, Chinese secret societies that in some cases began in imperial times, have brought into the mainland their dubious trade from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and other places not under direct Chinese government control. A recent burst of assassinations, bombings and other violence in Macau, the Portuguese colony scheduled to revert to Chinese rule in December 1999, has been blamed on crime gangs maneuvering for position in advance of the transfer.

Chinese authorities are attempting to cope with other organized crime groups that have a hand in such activities as illegal gambling, extortion, drug trafficking, gun-running, smuggling, prostitution, illegal immigration, fraud and the manufacture and sale of pirated goods.