Macao – Organized Crime in China or Not

November 19, 2010

The Chicago Sun–Times published news that MGM picks reputed China crime family over N.J.

Most Westerns, specifically Americans, when he or she sees the word “China” in the Chicago Sun-Times headline will believe this is another example of China’s corruption and that impression will continue after reading the piece.

In fact, the headline should have read, “MGM picks reputed Macao crime family over N.J.”

Macao is not China even though it technically belongs of the People’s Republic. The World History Blog provides a short history of the former Portuguese colony, which is a Special Administrative Region in China today but has more in common with the Principality of Monaco or Las Vegas.

Macao’s location was first settled by members of the South Sung Dynasty escaping invading Mongols in 1277. Later, in 1516, Portuguese traders built a staging port there, the oldest European settlement in the Far East.

The Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1643) did not recognize that Portugal ruled over Macao and collected rent until 1849 when the Portuguese, taking advantage of China’s defeat during the first opium war with England and France, declared Macau’s independence from China.


Old Macau in 1960

Britannica tells us that Macao was returned to China in 1999. However, the transfer agreement allowed Macao to govern itself with a one-house legislature and a legal system based on Portuguese law — not China’s legal system.

Macao has a small security force to protect the 11.3 square mile (29.2 square kilometer) area, but defense is the responsibility of the central government in Beijing.

Since 2000, the gambling and tourist industry has been increasingly important to Macao’s economy and the city has become the playground of global tourists, nearby Hong Kong and wealthy mainland Chinese.

David Campion says, “As in Havana and Las Vegas, the gambling economy in Macau was first built up and its rules enforced by clever and well-organized gangsters, here called Triads. Once a date was set for the departure of the Portuguese, the Triads fought amongst each other viciously for greater control over the territory before the PRC was due to come in and rain on their parade (which it didn’t, as it turned out).”

Discover more about Organized Crime in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Beijing Must Maintain Tight Control

November 18, 2010

My wife and I went to see Inside Job, and I returned home thinking that China should maintain tight control over its financial sector and continue to keep out disruptive elements such as the Tibetan and Islamic separatists and the Falun Gong Religious Cult.

In addition, China must keep locking up dissidents that want China to become a full-blown, so-called democracy as the US claims to be.

In fact, I suspect the same people (named in the documentary) that produced the 2008 global economic crises want to have their go at China’s money to see how much of that they may legally steal once they change Chinese laws for their purposes.

I seriously question that America is still a democracy or a republic.

Instead, America seems controlled by a few huge US banks and Wall Street. The rest of us peasants are being relegated to the position of modern-day debt serfs who must pay for the greed and mistakes of a few.

Anyone that believes that China is more corrupt than America, think again. I’d rather deal with China’s corruption challenges than the moral and ethical corruption that plagues America’s financial sector.

If you know how much the 2008 economic crisis cost the globe, you will know the extent of that American corruption. Global Issues pegs that global loss at about 62 trillion.


“Inside Job” Trailer

For those who continue to blame China for stealing US jobs, the Pew Economic Policy Group says the 2008 economic crises that started in the US cost 5.5 million Americans their jobs and another 4 million jobs that would have been created.

In China, about 15 million jobs were lost resulting in more than 80,000 demonstrations and riots across the country.

Millions more jobs were lost outside China and the US.

Reuters says, “Inside Job … is a must-see for pretty much everybody.”

“This is not a piece of ragged muckraking or breathless advocacy,” the NY Times says. “It rests its outrage on reason, research and careful argument.”

The sad fact is that this documentary was only in the art house that shows films in our area that do not have the popularity of a “Megamind” or a “Harry Potter” film.

We were part of an audience of five.

It doesn’t matter if US citizens vote Republican or Democratic. It is obvious that President Reagan let the sociopathic foxes into the hen house and both Bushes, Clinton and now President Obama are feeding our chickens to those foxes.

Unfortunately, I agree with the comments I’ve read on the Internet that say no matter how many people see Inside Job nothing will change. This malignant cancer has spread too far.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, business, capitalism, China, Communism, crime, economy, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chinese Border Guards stop Drug Trafficking — Part 2/2

November 18, 2010

The most common method of smuggling is to hide the opium from Afghanistan in the smuggler’s luggage. The smugglers will also use other tricks to fool the inspectors.

At the Hongqilafu Border Inspection Station, one team of inspectors checks the luggage inside the station while another team inspects the empty bus.

China’s border guards even go under the tourist busses and check the bottom.  Sniffer dogs were sent to the station but the dogs died due to the lack of oxygen.

The conditions at the border station have been improved over the years.

At one time, the guards lived in trailers.  Now, they live in a new, updated border station in a permanent building.

One officer, who has been at the station for more than a decade, said, “In the past, when it was extremely cold in late winter, we couldn’t sleep at night. Sometimes the temperature fell so low that when I got up in the morning, I found that part of my cap had been frozen to the wall of the camper van.”

The border pass near the inspection station is open from May 1 to October 31. For the rest of the year when the area is covered in ice and snow, the pass is closed. Yet, the border guards must be stationed there in the six months of the off season.  It’s a tough assignment even with improved living conditions.

As China has opened up more to the outside world, the Hongqilafu Border crossing is open to other nationalities than just Pakistanis. Each year, more tourists visit China along this route.

Return to Chinese Border Guards stop Drug Trafficking — Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The History of Organized Crime in China — Part 3/5

November 18, 2010

In a short period, the Green Gang changed from an old fashioned Northern Chinese group of sworn brothers into one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world.

At the center of the Green Gang’s metamorphosis was one man. His name was Du Yue-sheng. Du grew up an orphan and illiterate near Shanghai.

When Du was fourteen, he arrived in Shanghai and spent the money he earned on opium and women. In 1910, Du was sworn into the Green Gang.

Du lived and worked out of the French Concession in Shanghai where the police were the criminals.

In 1924, Du had an opportunity to become the leader of the Green Gang when the current leader, Wong, had the son of a powerful warlord beaten. The warlord then had Wong arrested and tossed in prison.

Du paid the warlord to free Wong, who then owed Du a debt of gratitude. From that day on, Du controlled the Green Gang.

 

In 1927, General Chiang Kai-shek made a deal with the Triad Du controlled to destroy the Communists in Shanghai who were organizing labor unions.

Frederick Wakeman, a historian at the University of California-Berkeley says that Du was threatened with the possibility of a Communist victory.

Thousands of Green Gang members went after the Communists to shoot and behead as many as possible. Within hours, at least five thousand Communists had been executed.

As a reward, Chiang Kai-shek made Du a general in the Nationalist Army. Du’s public image became one of respectability while he maintained an iron control over Shanghai and the Green Gang.

For Chiang Kai-shek, the alliance with Du and the Green Gang became a useful way to raise money from Shanghai’s wealthy families.

Du was also in charge of the agency to stop the opium trade in Shanghai and he controlled the drugs seized by the Nationalists, which he would sell making a huge profit.

Return to The History of Organized Crime in China – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese men, crime, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chinese Border Guards stop Drug Trafficking — Part 1/2

November 17, 2010

The expansion of poppy growing in recent years has created problems around the globe.

Even at one of the most remote border inspection stations in the world, the frontier guards must be vigilant against drug traffickers.

Hongqilafu, Zinjiang lies along the border of China and Pakistan at an altitude of 5,100 meters (almost 17,000 feet).

The oxygen at this altitude is less than half of sea level. This is where China’s Hongqilafu border station stands.

In the last few years, more drugs have been smuggled across the Sino-Pakistani border because of the expansion of poppy growing in Afghanistan.

In fact, United Nations statistics show that 87% of all illegal heroin in the world comes from Afghanistan.

Li Shengyu, commander of the Hongqilafu Border Inspection Station says, “They need buyers for the huge amount of drugs. As far as we know, the drug dealers are targeting China as a new market and plan to make their way into China across the border at Hongqilafu.”

Between 2006 and 2008, huge amounts of drugs were intercepted at border stations. The Chinese border guards must be vigilant to discover hidden drugs among the tourists coming into China.

Learn about the 19th Century Opium Wars

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese police, crime, government | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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