Smuggling regular goods in China: evidence from Chinese sentencing documents

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The booming cross-border trade has led to a surge in the smuggling of regular and illicit goods in China’s bordering regions. While much attention has been paid to studying drugs and human trafficking, little is known about the smuggling of regular goods in China. Utilizing sentencing documents collected from the website of China Judgements Online, this study systematically evaluated the geographic pattern of smuggling regular goods and examined the factors contributing to sentencing smugglers in China. The findings revealed a geographic discrepancy in the distribution of smuggling cases in China. And defendants holding Hong Kong, Macao, or foreign travel documents were granted small leniency for smuggling regular goods. Our semi-structured interviews revealed that smuggling regular goods was primarily driven by economic motivation, and systematic gaps in tax regimes, visa systems, and law enforcement capacities, etc., have contributed to the residents’ participation of smuggling activities.