BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on Southeast Asian countries on Thursday to take strong measures to crack down on online gambling and telecom fraud, urging the “relevant” nations to shoulder their responsibilities.
A series of cases of online gambling and telecom fraud incidents along the Thai-Myanmar border has threatened and harmed citizens of China and other countries, Wang was quoted as saying in a foreign ministry statement.
He told a rare meeting with the region’s envoys that China was willing to strengthen cooperation with ASEAN countries in law enforcement and security to provide a safe environment in which people of all nations can travel.
China’s offer to step up security cooperation underscores Beijing’s increasing concern over the growing threat posed by telecom fraud and human trafficking in Southeast Asia. It also suggests a new urgency from Beijing to bolster coordination with the 10-nation ASEAN grouping, which includes Myanmar and Thailand, to tackle cross-border crime.
Chinese tourists, who spent billions of dollars annually across the region prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, are a significant source of revenue for neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. However, concerns about trafficking and stories circulating on Chinese social media of travellers being held up by gangs could deter them from visiting there.
In a recent high-profile case, a Chinese actor who went missing earlier this month near the Thai-Myanmar border was found in Myanmar. Thai police said last week they believed he was a victim of human trafficking.
Overseas fraud syndicates have duped Chinese citizens with promises of high-paying jobs, food, accommodation and airfares, and trapped them in telecom fraud dens in towns such as Myawaddy, on Myanmar’s border with Thailand, China’s public security ministry was reported as saying by state media CCTV on Wednesday.
Thai policymakers agreed to “speed up the resolution of the problems impacting Thailand’s image as a safe tourism destination” during a cabinet meeting on Monday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
Thailand last year helped facilitate the transfer of about 900 Chinese nationals who had been trapped in scam centres in Myawaddy, while in 2023, Myanmar handed over 31,000 telecom fraud suspects to China.
(Reporting by Joe Cash, Yukun Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
