Oct. 12, 06: Crime, Business & Politics in Asia

Search: Bertil Lintner: CRIME, BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN ASIA

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:QBmE4BQmlJkJ:
www.asiapacificms.com/papers/pdf
/crime_business_politics_in_asia.pdf+CRIME,+
BUSINESS+AND+POLITICS+IN+ASIA+,+
Lintner&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1

Note also that Lintner has written a book on this topic -- worth checking.

CRIME, BUSINESS AND POLITICS IN ASIA -- pdf --
Department of Political Science/Centre for Development and the Environment & Department of Sociology and Human Geography,University of Oslo , University of Oslo. October 17-19, 2002.

www.asiapacificms.com/papers/pdf
/crime_business_politics_in_asia.pdf

INTRODUCTION

In the current debate about democratisation, governance, human rights and globalisation in Asia — and the world — one cast of characters has almost always been overlooked: the region’s organised crime syndicates. Or, if they have been analysed, the conclusions have been seriously flawed. Some analysts have argued that the absence of any lage-scale inter-gang warfare suggests that the various cartels co-exist and perhaps even cater for different markets and needs. The existence of such a symbiotic relationship was indicated by then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, James Woolsley, who told the US Congress in April 1994 that “organised criminals from Russia, China and Africa are forging ties with old European and Latin American crime groups to threaten national economies and world security…Violent drug traffickers and other criminal groups are spreading and co-ordinating their activities throughout the world.” [....]

In this writer’s view, the arguments both of Woolsey and Sterling, on the one
hand, and of Chossudovsky on the other, have serious shortcomings. The first fails to take into consideration the vast extent of official complicity in organised crime, while the second turns the entire free-market system into a criminal enterprise. The situation is far less clear-cut and much more complex than either interpretation of the relationship between organised crime, the banking and business community, intelligence agencies and governments, whether corrupt or not. To express it in American terms, it is not “the good guys versus the bad guys,” nor are “all guys bad.”

While criminals may live outside the law, they have never been outside society. In
Asia especially, there has always been a symbiosis between law and crime — but only with respect to a particular kind of criminal underworld. Organised crime helps the
authorities police more unpredictable, disorganised crime, for instance, to keep the streets safe. There are also certain things that governments — and big business — just can’t do.

A certain company may want to eliminate a competitor, but is unable to do so by normal, legal means. An organised crime gang can then be employed to make life difficult for the other party. When in 1984 the Guomindang’s security services in Taiwan wanted to get rid of a dissident, troublesome journalist in exile, Henry Liu, they delegated the task to hitmen from the island’s most powerful crime syndicate, the United Bamboo gang. The gang was more than willing to carry out the killing, not on account of any concern about Liu, but because in exchange they would get unofficial protection for their own businesses: gambling, prostitution and loan sharking. [....]

1. CRIME, BUSINESS AND OFFICIALDOM [....]

2. CRIME INTERNATIONAL INC? [....]

3. CHINA: RETURN OF THE TRIADS [....]

4. CONCLUSION [....]

Growing links between Chinese organised crime and the government and its agencies also make it far more dangerous than other criminal gangs in the region, including the yakuza, whose power is no longer what it used to be, and the extremely brutal but loosely organised Russian Mafia. [....]

In Taiwan perhaps, but not in many other countries in Asia, and certainly not in
China. Tackling the menace of organised crime, and the centuries-old system of secrecy, “connections” and lack of transparency that comes with it, will be a vital task if the Asian countries — and especially China — are ever going to develop into more prosperous and democratic countries, and if civil societies all over the world are to be protected from the worst excesses of the globalised mobsters.

Search: "secret meetings were held between certain Triad leaders and Wong Man-fong, the deputy director of Xinhua, the New China News Agency" , Yah Lin Trie, better known as Charlie Trie , "Sino-Indonesian tycoon Mochtar Riady alias Li Wenzheng — had put US$16 million into the stock of Arkansas’ Worthen Bank." fund-raiser John Huang joined the Commerce Department , remittances from a little-known businessman in Macau called Ng Lap Seng , Chen Kai-kit, who also used the name Chio Ho-cheung , Hong Kong arm of China Aerospace Corp. , PLA , CAT , Macau , aircraft carrier , a man deeply implicated in an American president’s fund-raising campaign , "Stanley Ho, another local business contact, and two sisters: Anna Chennault and Loretta Fung" , Wong Sing-wa , Donorgate scandal , Chen Kai-kit, the Triad-connected legislator who had dined with the Clintons

........ and much more

Documented and worth reading. Read the whole article.




Scroll down this webpage: Red General and the First Lady -- and the many articles which follow it, Charles R. Smith Monday, Dec. 9, 2002

www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/803771/posts