Semafor reports: "China urges its citizens to evacuate from northern Myanmar amid growing unrest." The article begins:
China’s embassy in Myanmar urged its nationals to leave a border area in the country’s restive Shan State Thursday, citing growing security risks.
A surge in unrest has seen increased clashes between Myanmar’s ruling military junta and armed ethnic rebel groups in the Laukkai district in the mountainous northern state, which shares a border with China. Beijing’s complicated role in the conflict reflects Myanmar’s fraught ties with its largest trading partner.
How is China's relationship "complicated"?
In addition to political unrest amid Myanmar’s nearly three-year civil war, unstable governance has made Shan state a hotbed for cross-border criminal activities, with a proliferation of online scam centers. More than 40,000 Chinese nationals involved in online fraud schemes have been arrested and deported in the past three months, according to Radio Free Asia, while the UN estimates that at least 120,000 people have been trafficked into working the scams. With Beijing having pressed the military junta for months to shut down the scam centers, a major offensive by an alliance of ethnic rebel groups in October paved the way for a crackdown on cross-border crime that targets Chinese nationals, according to CNN.
This Radio Free Asia article also explains:
Shan state, known as a hub for crystal methamphetamine trafficking, is rife with other illegal activities in enclaves along the Chinese border, as criminals take advantage of ongoing civil unrest and armed conflict under the junta which seized power in a 2021 coup. Falling within neighboring China’s orbit, northern Shan state has become a focal point for Chinese scammers who target their own citizens.
From Oct. 31 to Dec. 15, nearly 12,050 Chinese citizens linked to online scam groups in the region were arrested and deported, according to a mid-December announcement by the State Administration Council, the formal name of the military junta governing Myanmar.
Most of the Chinese nationals sent back were operating in the Kokang region, whose mostly ethnic Chinese population has backed resistance to the junta.
Arrests of other Chinese nationals involved in the criminal activity have occurred in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army, or USWA, said to be the largest ethnic armed organization in Myanmar. USWA soldiers arrested more than 1,000 Chinese nationals involved in the gangs on Sept. 6-7 and immediately transferred them across the border to Chinese police.
China’s Ministry of Public Security announced on Nov. 21 that it had apprehended more than 31,000 Chinese nationals linked to online fraud gangs in northern Myanmar. Those arrested included ringleaders, recruiters and over 1,500 Chinese fugitives.
Altogether, the figures add up to over 40,000 Chinese nationals arrested and deported in connection with online scam operaions [sic] from early September to mid-December.
Chinese scammers scamming people in China.
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