Juridical tautology: "illegal crime"
The news is flooded with stories about Hui Ka Yan 许家印 (MSM Xǔ Jiāyìn), one of China's wealthiest individuals, Chairman and Party Committee secretary of Evergrande Group, the mega real estate corporation that is currently going belly up, being arrested on suspicion of "illegal crimes". That expression sounded so strange that I had to find out what the Chinese expression was.
Turns out that it is "wéifǎ fànzuì 违法犯罪". Since this phrase occurs frequently in Chinese texts (221,000,000 ghits), it is a firmly established expression in the common legal lexicon of China. It is not a slipup. Furthermore, the English translation "illegal crime" is frequently met in official Chinese media accounts.
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