Connived, or sometimes secretly run, by some malfeasant law enforcers and government officials, the Mafia are developing so rampantly that they might grow to be a national disaster if left not checked, according to the National People's Congress, China's parliament, which has just ended a survey to southern China about the underworld there.

Different from Mafias elsewhere, Chinese Mafias has got a unique feature: They are getting interwoven more and more closely with the public power, according to the Beijing-based Legal Daily.

The newspaper lays down four types of collusion between Mafias and governmental authorities:

First, Mafias encroach or penetrate into the local authorities and target and then manipulate governmental officials or law enforcers there, forcing them to serve for the underworld. Or in the contrary case, local officials and law enforcers assent and utilize, overtly or not, Mafias to clear up their political rivals along the administrative ladder or control the monopolistic interests in local markets.

Second, Mafias and local public power inter-hook temporarily for a certain short-term mutually beneficial interests. Compared with the first type, this kind of relationship is more like that between employer and employee, cemented with mere money.

Third, Mafias and the public power are the two faces of one man.

Apart from the public power in their hands, some local governmental officials, policemen and court staff directly run the super-law gangs or serve as their umbrellas, forming a criminal society tens of thousands of times destructive and vicious than those composed of by just scoundrels or rascals, according to the newspaper.

The last one, governmental servants or law enforcers throw away their public and legal duties when their kin or relatives get involved into Mafias. In this case, there may be no obvious deal between the public power and Mafias, but on sale is the social equity and justice.

Since 2000, the Chinese Government has launched much tougher waves of campaign to crack down corruption and uproot Mafias.

Of the cases investigated, officials involved include not only the minnows at towns and villages, but also mayors of such capitol city as Shenyang in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Besides harder strikes against corruption and Mafias, the newspaper calls for a better management of the jobless.

The majority of Mafias are the young and unemployed, including laid-offs, farmers and demobilized servicemen.

(People?s Daily September 10, 2002)