Exploiting Opportunities and Adapting to Change: Organised Crime in Hong Kong, China, and Japan

About the Event

The ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong, China’s campaigns against organised crime, Japan's harsher laws targeting crime and continuing stagnation, together with the pandemic and its effects on the global economy, represent only some of the challenges that Asian-based Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) have faced in recent years. The panel will discuss how long-established OCGs adjust to – and take part in – political instability, how they exploit new opportunities provided by the Internet to expand their business online and offline, and how they react to increased law-enforcement pressure and the emergence of competing OCGs. Bearing in mind that Asia varies greatly across the geographical, social, and legal particularities of the region, this event looks at how OCGs operate in China, Hong Kong, and Japan.

T. Wing Lo

Professor Lo is Associate Vice-President (Student Affairs) of City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on Chinese organised crime, triad societies & anti-corruption, youth justice & offenders' rehabilitation. He has published numerous journal papers, research monographs, conference proceedings, books and book chapters in criminology, social work, and counselling.

Hirosue Noboru

Dr Noboru is commissioned researcher at Ryukoku University's Criminology Research Center, and a probation officer at the Ministry of Justice. His research focuses on the yakuza, youth gangs in Japan, and offenders’ rehabilitation. He is the author of several books and articles on the yakuza and other criminal gangs.

Peng Wang

Dr Wang is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, the University of Hong Kong (HKU). His research focuses on organized crime, corruption, police and policing, informal institutions, and China studies. He is the author of The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-legal Protection(Oxford University Press, 2017), the first scholarly account of the rise of Chinese Mafia, and in-depth study of Red and Black mafias in China. Currently, he is researching the politics of crime control and the role of patronage networks in the Chinese bureaucratic system, and he is working on his second book focusing on extralegal governance in China.