Chinese Mobsters and Megacities
The Chinese press is having a field day with the juicy details in a case involving massive government corruption, mob-style beatings and a 46-year-old female crime-boss, reputed to have a stable of 16 lovers at her beck and call.
Ongoing trials are taking place in Chongqing, a megacity located in Sichuan, a province in western China. Xie Caiping, aka ”The Godmother”, was the ringleader in an extensive organized crime network that ran 20 illegal gambling halls, all protected by the police. (Chongqing’ deputy police chief, who happened to be Xie’s brother-in-law, reportedly bought a $4.4 million villa from bribes.) The investigation has been going on since last year and over 1,500 suspects—from gangsters to high-ranking officers—have been rounded up. This AP article notes: “Intended to display the Chinese leadership’s renewed resolve to stamp out corruption, the Chongqing campaign has instead highlighted how entrenched criminal gangs have become through China.”
Back in 2007, Adam Yamaguchi and I travelled to Chongqing and profiled people from different walks of life in this megacity on the rise. We visited a city in transition between the old and the new. The old could be very picturesque—smoky, crumbling old teahouses where old men played checkers and card games, freelance porters known as “bang bang” men stooped under the heavy load they toted on their backs, peasants eking out a meager existence on the few remaining plots of land within city limits that hadn’t yet been seized by greedy developers.
We also couldn’t help but be confronted by the new look of Chongqing—as revealed to us by young Chinese yuppies who had filled their new apartment with IKEA-esque knock offs, the real estate developer super-confident he’d be able to sell thousands of apartment units before they were even built and the homegrown auto company that aspired to be China’s answer to BMW. Even the “bang bang” man who we profiled was no longer carrying loads across his back using a traditional, old-fashioned bamboo stick. Instead he was valiantly carrying gigantic sacks, filled with Western-style garments, for a department story catering to China’s rising middle class. It was clear that the new Chongqing was quickly replacing the old Chongqing and most residents seemed, on the surface, happy about it, as long as everyone’s lives were getting better (read: richer) by the day. So what if all the construction dust and power plant pollution made the air seem as thick as pea soup?
About a week after we aired “City on Steroids”, a massive earthquake struck Sichuan province. More than 87,000 people were killed including over 5,000 children when some 7,000 shoddily constructed schools collapsed. Allegations of government corruption as the cause behind the substandard buildings are still being investigated by grieving parents and media. But, over a year later, the Chinese central government in Beijing is still trying to silence all critics on this matter.
Instead, the central government periodically goes after provincial and city officials in cases like this one. It’s happened time and again in many of the megacities on China’s East Coast. Now it’s Chongqing’s turn. The scandals are covered breathlessly by the state-run media. Scapegoats are found. Colorful characters like “The Godmother” and their extravagant lifestyles are trotted out for show trials that rivet the population at large. All this, of course, deflects from examination of the deeper underlying problems in China’s hybrid, Communist-yet-Capitalist system.
In the past three decades as China’s economy has undergone its stratospheric rise, organized crime has re-emerged, like any other well-run business enterprises. And with the reform of China’s tax code in which local governments had to send their revenue to Beijing, local government officials like the ones in Sichuan, became all too susceptible to shady dealing making with organized crime groups .
“The Godmother” has been sentenced to 18 years and some of her cohorts have even gotten death sentences. But in a country as vastly populated as China, this measure is kind of like cutting one head off a hydra-headed monster. You can bet this web of businessmen, mobsters and officials isn’t unique to Chongqing. And until the central government is willing to undergo the difficult, systemic reform to get at the root causes of corruption, organized crime will keep on gathering economic and political strength.
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