SOC ACE researcher Dr Xu Peng submits evidence to UK Parliament's China and the UK Economy inquiry
Dr Xu Peng has submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament's Business and Trade Committee. A researcher on the SOC ACE project, The Centrality of the Margins: Borderlands, Illicit Economies and Uneven Development, Peng has drawn on that work for this submission to the China and the UK Economy inquiry.
Peng, a postdoctoral researcher (Manchester / SOAS CIVAD), examines the operational links between large-scale criminal economies and the ways in which their proceeds enter, settle within, and become legitimised by UK markets. She argues that while China will remain an important economic partner for the UK, the policy challenge is not whether to engage economically, but how to distinguish beneficial engagement from under-regulated exposure and govern the risks associated with open commercial channels.
The evidence highlights how legitimate channels of commerce and professional services can be exploited through shell-company formation, opaque capital movement and the embedding of scam-linked assets into the UK economy. It argues that vulnerabilities lie at the intersection of company law, anti-money laundering supervision, property markets and cross-border enforcement, and should be considered as part of the UK's wider economic security framework.
The submission also examines the limits of current enforcement. While civil asset recovery has become an effective practical tool for recovering illicit assets, Peng argues that asset-focused enforcement should be complemented by stronger front-end gatekeeping and more structured cross-border cooperation. The evidence recommends strengthening oversight of business-service infrastructures, focusing regulation on high-risk corporate structures rather than nationality, making corporate transparency and shell-company risk an explicit item on the UK–China Financial Working Group's agenda, and developing a UK position on cross-border victim compensation.
Read Dr Peng's submission, Governing Risk in UK–China Economic Engagement: Shell Companies, Illicit Capital, and Cross-Border Compliance, and find out more about her work on the Centrality of the Margins: Borderlands, Illicit Economies and Uneven Development project.
