When a local industry dies out, the neighborhood watch often turns into a criminal gang just to survive.
April 13, 2026
Original Paper
Tea Export Decline and Crime Activities in China
SSRN · 6560409
The Takeaway
During the decline of the tea trade in historical China, people didn't just turn to random crime; they repurposed their community 'mutual aid' clans into organized crime syndicates. It shows that strong social bonds can become dangerous weapons when the economy collapses.
From the abstract
Tea has been China’s major export product since the 17th century. This paper studies the effects of tea export decline on social instability in the late Qing Dynasty (1880−1894), with a focus on how a severe negative export shock turned clan-like quasi-blood mutual-aid organizations (i.e., Huidang) into criminal enterprises. The booming tea exports of British India and Ceylon in the 1880s caused a decline of China’s tea export to Britain, which serves as a natural experiment in our analysis. Usi