Book Review: Peng Wang, The Chinese Mafia: Organised Crime, Corruption and Extra-Legal Protection
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617715540 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
568 Theoretical Criminology 21(4)
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Peng Wang, The Chinese Mafia: Organised Crime, Corruption and Extra-Legal Protection, Oxford
University Press: Oxford, 2017; 248 pp.: 9780198758402, £70.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Georgios A Antonopoulos, Teesside University, UK
Approximately 40 years ago, the Chinese ‘open door’ policy and economic reform made
profit and economic development a national movement (quanming jingshang). The eco-
nomic reform introduced a new ethos of entrepreneurship. Deng Xiaoping’s saying: ‘Be
the cat white or be the cat black, it is the clever cat that will catch the mouse’ is indicative
of the mentality instilled emphasizing success regardless of the approach. The increasing
political emphasis on market forces has promoted a blurring of the legal and the illegal.
The Chinese economic reforms from the late 1970s onwards have also been accompa-
nied by an array of developments and social issues: privatization, increased marginaliza-
tion of peasant migrants and laid-off workers, urbanization and recognition of private
property rights, which one way or another had to be protected, in an environment in
which the rule of law has been partially operational.
Peng Wang with his book debut, The Chinese Mafia: Organised Crime, Corruption
and Extra-Legal Protection, has done organized crime studies a service. The book, which
is based on Wang’s doctoral research attempts to offer a (fresh and unique) perspective
into the complex ‘relationship between three independent systems of order in the Chinese
context: the legal system, social relations, and the mafia’ (p. 15). In his endeavour, the
author, who has been inspired primarily by the work of Diego Gambetta and Federico
Varese, adopts Gambetta’s definition of the ‘mafia’: ‘a type of illegal enterprise special-
izing in the provision of private protection’ (p. 4). The business of private protection in
China has been a rather under-researched manifestation of organized crime.
The book is based on three parts: ‘Part I—Theory and history’ (Chapters 1 and 2);
‘Part II—Extra-legal protection in contemporary China’ (Chapters 3–6); and ‘Part III—
Conclusions and reflections’ (Chapters 7 and 8). In Chapter 1 Wang introduces his work
to the reader, and offers a robust theoretical discussion about mafia emergence and the
embeddedness of mafia protection in social relations including the role of the guanxi (the
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