CHINA TRADE UNIT
CONFIDENTIAL
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION IN HONG KONG
9th Floor Bank of America Tower 12 Harcourt Road Hong Kong Mail Address GPO Box No 528 Hong Kong
Telex HX 73031 Cable Address Uktrade Hong Kong Telephone 523 0176 Fax 845 2870
N GOYT HKD 7
MN Be
Mr Store
Stephen Bradley Esq Deputy Political Adviser HONG KONG GOVERNMENT
Sear
Stephen
Your reference
Our reference
Date
7 January 1992
HKA 177/1
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PSB AND SMUGGLING IN GUANGDONG
I lunched with a lawyer in Canton before Christmas who has extensive experience of the PSB, in and out of the courts. He is as anti-establishment as you can get while remaining a lawyer (and therefore a municipal employee) in China.
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He then said we Most were too Some junior staff
The lawyer firstly confirmed that the provincial FAO would be in direct contact with the PSB on the issue. should not assume the PSB was rotten throughout. busy to be directly involved, or too far away. were part of smuggling rackets, and more senior officers either turned a blind eye, or accepted sweeteners. Occasionally action was taken.
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In the lawyer's experience, although officials (PSB, Customs or Marine Police) were prosecuted from time to time, he knew of no case where sentence was passed. Cases were settled out of court, with some booty being handed in and the individual then cross-posted to Shaoguan or other northern points roughly what Charles I used to call 'the brute and beastly shires of the realm'.
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The problem of prosecution was that it condemned by implica- tion the senior officers of the guilty man, if not a whole office or even department. Once that had happened an organisation's reputation, however shaky within the government, became publicly discredited. No one willed that on themselves.
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So efforts genuine efforts at the top of the provincial government to prevent smuggling were only successful in (for example) the electronics market in Panyu (I can testify to its remarkable array of smuggled booty). Along the coastline, before goods were landed, it was harder. The lawyer added that the smugglers often had more sophisticated equipment than the police, and whole villages providing back up. It was a cottage industry.
CONFIDENTIAL
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