Chinese Criminals are not Ten Feet Tall - The Mythology of Organised Crime and Communist United Front
The Asian Crime Century briefing 123
Reporting of Chinese organised crime as well as wider analysis of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is often drifting into sensationalism and storylines that fit a single narrative. In reality, organised crime and triads (Chinese secret societies) and their relationship to the state is nuanced and complex. Sadly, news media platforms do not take the time to explore such nuances and even research analysts increasingly slip into lazy narratives about Chinese criminals and relationships with the CCP.
One research analyst recently said of alleged links between certain Chinese criminals and aspects of CCP united front “This is beyond clandestine diplomacy…This is crime that is really deeply entrenched in state machinery.” Such statements are without detailed evidence, sensationalist, and encourage simplistic single narrative interpretations of complex areas of Chinese government.
Chinese criminals, and triads, are not ten feet tall. Yet they benefit from a mythology that develops if allowed to do so, which in turn leads to citizens in areas where triads are active to believe that these criminals are oblivious to authority. This mythology is often fed by the news media, which often sensationalises triads and other Chinese criminals. This sensationalist reporting is not only by Chinese media, but Western English language journalists are equally guilty.
Triads are not ten feet tall
In 1989, the author was a junior inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police working in uniform in a division in Kowloon. During a routine check of a new karaoke lounge bar, a friendly Chinese man named Chan Wai-man was introduced as a former police officer and famous kung fu movie star (Chan is shown in the picture above). Chan shook hands, smiled and professed great friendship in front of the large number of customers in the bar. The next day the Divisional Commander exploded with the author for being so stupid. He explained that Chan Wai-man was indeed a former police officer, who had left as he was known to be a prominent member of a faction of the 14K triad (there are many separate factions).
The author was instructed by the Divisional Commander to report for duty that evening and return with him to the karaoke bar. That evening the Divisional Commander led the license check and explained to the manager that the bar would close, otherwise the police (i.e. the stupid author) would return every night to conduct the licenses and check all of the identity cards of every customer (which tends to make people not want to drink there). The bar manager pleaded that there were significant costs to decorate and open the bar and that closing would result in a great deal of financial loss. The author returned with uniform police officers to the bar every night for several weeks until the management got the message and closed. It was a lesson in colonial police power, and a long established police approach about how to prevent triads gaining a foothold in a new area by controlling entertainment establishments in Hong Kong.
Several years later, the author was involved in monitoring Wan Kuok-koi during the triad conflict in Macau. From 1996, Wan’s 14K group (the Macau faction) and other triad groups in Macau were in open violent conflict. In 1996 there were 21 murders and in the first five months of 1997 a dozen murders and more assaults, driven by the competition for control of casino VIP rooms and vice between the Macau 14K, the Wo On Lok, and the Sun Yee On triad societies. The triad conflict became so violent and so protracted that there were fears in the Royal Hong Kong Police that it could spill over into Hong Kong and impact on the handover of sovereignty by the UK to the PRC in July 1997. Wan was so high profile that he seemed to be untouchable and beyond the law (i.e. ten feet tall).
That perception changed when Dr. Antonio Marques Baptista (now deceased) personally led a team of armed Macau Judiciary Police officers to arrest Wan and his brother in a private dining room at the Lisboa Casino. The arrest was significant and vital to demonstrate to the Chinese population (and Westerners) that triads were not invincible and that they could be brought to justice by law enforcement officers. Without such decisive action by the police, the triad reputation grows to become a mythology that the criminals encourage as a means of intimidating others in society. Wan Kuok-koi seemed to many people to be ten feet tall, but in reality he was only a violent criminal who was not very bright and became a useful tool for Chinese officials as a small part of their united front activities.
The mythology is fed by sensationalist news media reporting. A recent article in a US news publication mentions “the 14K triad, one of China’s largest organized crime groups with involvement in drug trafficking, illegal gambling, racketeering, human trafficking, and a range of other criminal activities”, which is highly misleading. As the Asian Crime Century briefing explained in 2024, the 14K triad society is in fact many factionalised groups and not a single cohesive organisation. Although created by the Kuomintang as a cohesive entity in the 1940s, by the 1970s the 14K was a factionalised set of separate criminal gangs that used the common name of the 14K but each under different leaders. Chan Wai-man and Wan Kuok-koi are both members of separate factions of the 14K, but they do not represent a single cohesive criminal organisation. When criminals such as Chan and Wan are confronted by determined law enforcement action they are revealed as ordinary people.
The CCP is also not ten feet tall
United front is an integral part of not only how the CCP perpetuates one-party rule, but also how the Party and its agencies influence thinking in other countries (explained by the Jamestown Foundation). Since its formation in 1921, the CCP learned from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union how to survive; it must utilise not only the hard power of the state (i.e. security agencies) but also soft power to bring diverse factions of society into a united front, dominated by the communist party (of course). Gerry Groot has described the CCP’s United Front work as, at its most basic level: “Rallying all those who can be rallied; uniting with all those who can be united (and isolating our enemies).”
United front encompasses all Chinese and anyone else who can be influenced, including criminals. However, criminals (including triads) as well as Hongmen are part of wide united front activities in any country, but not central to the policy itself. It should not be assumed that when CCP united front activities are found to involve criminals, triads, or Hongmen that this is a specific central strategy to utilise such people and groups. Everyone and anyone can be subject to cultivation for united front purposes, which illustrates the ethical flexibility of the CCP that changes based on how its aims can be achieved.
The recent US news article associated the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, an organisation linked to Wan Kouk-koi of the Macau 14K, to CCP united front activities. This complex situation was earlier explained in much greater detail in the Asian Crime Century briefing and also by the Jamestown Foundation. Detail is important to understand the complexity of the situation. The news article talks about the “World Hongmen History and Culture Association” and “Hongmen” more generally as if they are the same, which they are not.
The World Hongmen History and Culture Association is an organisation established fairly recently, around 2013 in Macau, that is an obvious front for the criminal activities of Wan Kuok-kui. Hongmen, or Hung Mun, are Chinese mutual aid associations that trace their origins to sworn brotherhoods formed during the Qing Dynasty. Some Hongmen evolved into triad societies, whilst others retained their focus on mutual aid for Chinese emigrants around the world. Conflating the World Hongmen History and Culture Association with all Hongmen (of which there are many) is overly simplistic and fails to capture the nuances of the history.
Wan has become notorious because of sensationalist news media stories, many of which are seized on by analysts who perpetuate the triad mythology as well as an assumed pervasiveness of the CCP. The news article regarding Hongmen is also misleading regarding the nature of the relationship between Wan Kuok-kui and the CCP. The article states that “The CCP makes precise, deliberate decisions on whom it associates with, and Wan is arguably the most notorious criminal on the continent who has also been very publicly sanctioned by the U.S….For them to have given him an award … it’s as clear-cut as it gets…It was an endorsement.” Wan is notorious only because of sensationalist news articles.
The article over-simplifies how government functions in China when there is engagement with criminals such as Wan. China is a huge country with a government spread over national, provincial, prefectural, county, township and down to village levels, with corresponding CCP structures, and although top down decision making is in the nature of the communist system there is substantial localised flexibility. This system of centralised authority and localised flexibility is well articulated by XC Chen and Gunter Schubert in ‘China in the era of ‘Top-level design’: hard steering by the central commission for comprehensively deepening reform (CCCDR) in National policymaking’:
“Policy-formulation at central level is communicated through the CCP’s meticulous system of issuing documents. The CCCDR typically approves three types of documents. The first includes ‘regulations’ (guiding), ‘measures’ (banfa), ‘guidelines’(zhunze), ‘implementation rules’ (shishi xizhe), and ‘circulars’ (tongzhi), which provide detailed policy implementation guidelines. The second type is ‘opinions’ (yijian), offering general requirements and fundamental principles, allowing flexibility for local adaptation (yindi zhiyi). The third type, ‘plans’ (guihua), outlines future steps in reform planning and is comparatively less mandatory.”
The Chinese proverb “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away” is often associated with Cantonese and southern Chinese officials who could operate with relative autonomy from the centre of imperial power in Beijing. Despite the immediacy of communications in the 21st century, the proverb remains broadly valid as governing a country as large as China requires autonomy of decision making at local levels. This is centralised authority and localised flexibility.
The outcome of this system is that although there is top down planning from the CCP there is local implementation that involves great flexibility. Some analysts may mistake top down decision making from the CCP as equating to the centralised direction of relationships with people such as Wan Kuok-koi.
The reality is more complicated and involves no grand conspiracy, but often local officials engaging with broad swathes of society, including criminals, especially when the purpose is united front. Intelligence suggests that Wan was approached by Chinese officials during the triad conflict in the then Portuguese colony in 1997. As documented in the Asian Crime Century briefing, the source of this intelligence was from the Portuguese police intelligence officers who the author was working with.
The Portuguese had surveillance video recordings of Wan meeting representatives from the New China News Agency (NCNA), which after 1949 was the unofficial Chinese government representative office in both Macau and also Hong Kong as well as the centre from where the Ministry of State Security (MSS) worked in both colonies. The Portuguese officers were convinced that the MSS had been manipulating Wan and using him for their own strategy, which was to show that the Portuguese could not govern effectively in the colony. The Portuguese believed that the intent of the MSS was to allow the triad violence to grow, but then to stop immediately upon the resumption of Chinese sovereignty and administration in 1999.
As explained in the Asian Crime Century in 2024, Wan was again contacted by Chinese government officials in 2012, a few months before he was released from prison in Macau. Wan was visited in prison by several officials from the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR, who persuaded Wan to promise that he would ensure peaceful coexistence with other triad factions in Macao. The officials also instructed Wan to set up a platform to promote peace, harmony and unity based on Chinese culture and history. The main purpose of this new organisation was to strengthen cross-strait links between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China as well as to pressure Chinese republican groups in Macao.
Wan was also asked by the Liaison Office officials to act as a bridge to unify the relationships with other triad societies. The Chinese officials also mentioned that Wan should take this responsibility to keep violence and crime to a minimum, and if he did not oblige the Chinese Government would crack down hard on him. In return, the Chinese Government would re-issue the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong & Macao Residents to Wan so that he could enter most of the provinces in Mainland China but would be limited to some designated areas. Wan promised that he would not do anything to harm stability in Macau after his release.
The source of this intelligence was from investigative reports commissioned by the author at the time, aiming to determine what was the threat from Wan after his release from prison. The intelligence report was compiled by former Royal Hong Kong Police officers who spoke directly to triads in Macau who were frequently used as sources. Intelligence is always an assessment of diverse information, but in this case the grading (for those who do this professionally) would be ‘B2’ (i.e. Source graded as B is generally considered reliable and trustworthy; information graded 2, while not fully confirmed, is assessed as probably correct based on available evidence and context).
The outcome of two separate reports firstly from 1997 and then in 2012 (15 years apart) is that intelligence suggests that Wan Kuok-koi had been approached by two different Chinese government groups. The first was the NCNA and the second was the Liaison Office. There is a possibility, and indeed a likelihood, that both contacts were made by Ministry of State Security officers posing as other government officials (the MSS does not tend to advertise itself). Wan was most likely identified as a useful tool for the MSS, both for specific intelligence tasking purposes as well as for broader united front activities aimed at undermining Taiwan. This is not a “Precise, deliberate decision” by the CCP, but localised flexibility by MSS officers developing and then managing live sources.
* * *
It is a long established tenet of the CCP that “the Party leads everything, including the Party, government, military, people, and education, in the east, west, north, south, and centre” (党政军民学，东西南北中，党是领导一切的), first articulated by Mao Zedong, reiterated by Deng Xiaoping, and reinforced again by Xi Jinping in 2012. However, whilst the party may lead everything it cannot control everything. Commentators should not assume that every act of Chinese officials on the ground comes from the top down CCP edicts. This is the case in regard to Chinese criminals and their relationship with the state, which is opportunistic for the criminals and manipulative for officials. Chinese criminals and triads with relationships with the MSS or any Chinese officials anywhere in the world illustrates that there is great ethical flexibility, or indeed often no ethical basis, amongst those serving the Chinese communist state. One should not assume that these relationships indicate a centralised plan or that any of those involved are more powerful than the reality of their limited resources. Chinese criminals are not ten feet tall, and nor are Chinese communist officials.