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China’s chief Xi Jinping and visiting Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra vowed to crack down on the rip-off networks that plague Southeast Asia as the 2 leaders met on Thursday in Beijing.
Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, that are south of China and share borders with Thailand, have turned main facilities of on-line rip-off operations the place individuals lured by false promoting of well-paid jobs are trafficked to secretive compounds the place they’re compelled to work by legal teams that run on-line scams focusing on individuals all around the world.
That has impacted Thailand’s popularity, as a number of high-profile tales of Chinese individuals being lured to work in Bangkok solely to be trafficked right into a rip-off compound in Myanmar have surfaced, with Chinese actor Wang Xing being the most recent such sufferer.
Thai and Chinese officers have taken public steps to handle the rip-off concern, together with a reported go to to the border area by Liu Zhongyi, China’s vice minister of public safety.
“China appreciates Thailand’s robust measures to fight on-line playing fraud. Both sides ought to proceed to strengthen regulation enforcement, safety, and judicial cooperation,” Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Paetongtarn echoed that, saying “Thailand is willing to strengthen law enforcement cooperation with China and other neighboring countries and take resolute and effective measures to combat cross-border crimes such as online gambling and fraud.”
Ahead of her visit, Thailand cut off electricity to some areas in Myanmar by its border to try to disrupt the operations of the scam compounds. The effect of that is unclear as the compounds often have their own generators.
The visit to China was Paetongtarn’s first as prime minister and comes as the two countries celebrate 50 years of establishing diplomatic relations.
On other bilateral issues, Xi said China was willing to work on a new railway project between the countries. On Tuesday, Thailand approved a $10 billion railway project that will eventually connect Bangkok to the Laos-China high speed railway. He also said they hoped to deepen cooperation in electric vehicles, with Thailand being an emerging market for Chinese automakers.
China was once a significant part of Thailand’s tourism segment but was down to 6.7 million visitors in 2024, less than the 11 million visitors in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic when Chinese visitors were nearly a third of all arrivals.
Paetongtarn has shown Thailand is willing to accommodate Chinese interests on key issues.
In January, a group of Chinese Uyghur detainees in Thailand pleaded for help before they were deported to China. Thailand’s decision to deport the Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group that faces persecution, came ahead of the two countries 50th anniversary of relations.
After the meeting in beijing, Paetongtarn said that Thailand “firmly” abides by the one-China precept, Beijing’s place that the island of Taiwan is a part of China.
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Associated Press author Jintamas Saksornchai contributed to this report.
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