Greater China and transnational environmental crime: Understanding criminal networks and enforcement responses

As one of the emerging forms of cross-border criminality, transnational environmental crime (TEC) has increasingly become a concern that features highly on the policy agenda and discourse of many international conferences and organisations. Thanks to its prominent yet 'ignoble' role as the world's leading supplier or consumer of a variety of illegal environmental goods including wildlife, timber, and ozone depleting substances (ODS), China has consistently remained at the heart of these concerns. This chapter is a case study of China-related TEC with a special focus on the illegal trade of three different categories of environmental goods (wildlife, timber and wood products, and ODS) in mainland China and its three adjacent territories (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). Through an examination of empirical data on seizures and bilateral trade from public sources, it seeks to disentangle China's present role and utility in the global and regional trade of the three selected environmental goods. In particular, analytical effort has been given to a range of key issues including the nature and scale of the black market, the magnitude and diversity of the traded contraband, and the hotspots, routes and methods associated with smuggling activities. This chapter concludes with a brief analysis of major legislative and enforcement challenges facing China in tackling environmental crime.