ABSTRACT: Some countries have gained control of their forest-exploiting industries through advanced regulatory regimes. But stricter regulation usually displaces forestexploitation into countries with weaker regulatory regimes. The most important current example is the shift of forest-exploitation for the Chinese market from China into Southeast Asia following the logging ban in China in 1998. In this paper we describe and document the impact of the logging ban after the 1998 floods: declining production within China, and increasing production for the Chinese market within Southeast Asia, including both legal and illegal logging. We also note the differences in the impact of the Chinese demand for forest products on various Southeast Asian countries. The differences are partly the result of differences in the levels of corruption, local political economy, and state regulatory capacity among countries in Southeast Asia.