Taipei: The Chinese Communist Party, which came to power promising to break the nexus between politics and crime, has teamed up with a notorious triad figure to help press its claims in Taiwan.

Chang An-lo, known as White Wolf, is a convicted kidnapper, extortionist and heroin trafficker who has been mobilising muscular protests and intimidating pro-democracy activists on the island.

Chang's ties to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) have been well known since the 1980s, when his ''brothers'' in the Bamboo Union triad were jailed for murdering a poilitical critic.

In an interview for Good Weekend, Chang has now shed light on how he came to survive and thrive in the protection of a different kind of powerful and secretive family network: the Chinese Communist Party’s "princeling" aristocracy.



“Yes I’ve met lots of these princelings,” said Chang, listing the sons of a former Communist Party general secretary and a top revolutionary general.