41. Organized Crime on the Belt and Road
- Author:
- Martin Purbrick
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- The continued rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the past decade has brought greater commerce and investment to Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, as China’s overseas economic footprint has grown, Chinese organized crime groups have also expanded their activities to become a regional problem. President Xi Jinping first introduced the BRI in 2013 when he proposed to Asian leaders jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, both of which PRC officials later commonly came to call the BRI. The expansion of Chinese organized crime across Asia encompasses multiple areas of activity: online fraud (including pyramid schemes), online gambling, human trafficking (for slavery and prostitution), animal or animal parts trafficking (for use in traditional Chinese medicine), and money laundering (of the proceeds of crime from the PRC).
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Economic Growth, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- China, Malaysia, Asia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar