China and Thailand should strengthen their economic and political relations to deal with the significant uncertainties facing the world, President Xi Jinping told Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra in Beijing yesterday.
Paetongtarn is currently on a four-day official visit to China, her first since taking office last year, which also coincides with the 50th anniversary of relations between the two countries.
According to a report by the state broadcaster CCTV, Xi told the Thai leader that there was considerable room for cooperation on the digital economy and in electric vehicles, where China has rapidly established a global lead. He also praised projects such as the high-speed railway set to link Bangkok with Kunming in southwestern China, the second phase of which was approved by the Thai government this week.
“In the face of unprecedented changes not seen for a 100 years, China and Thailand should deepen mutual trust over strategic interests and firmly support each other,” CCTV quoted Xi as saying.
After meeting Xi, Paetongtarn also witnessed the signing of 14 bilateral agreements, covering economics and investment, customs cooperation, science and technology, media cooperation, plans to complete the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway. Paetongtarn then met with the Thai Chamber of Commerce in China, before traveling to icy Harbin, where she is scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games today.
Of particular note, Xi thanked Paetongtarn for the “strong measures” her country has taken to shut down the online scamming centers that have sprung up around Thailand’s borders. The operations have grown to endemic proportions over the past five years, during which hundreds of thousands of people, including many Chinese nationals, have been tricked into running scams for Chinese organized crime syndicates in loosely regulated parts of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, many of them bordering Thailand.
Among them were the Chinese actor Wang Xing, 22, who was lured by a criminal gang to a scam center in Myawaddy, just inside Myanmar’s border with Thailand, last month. While he was subsequently rescued by Thai police, his case has attracted considerable public attention in China, which has increased its outreach to Thailand to address the issue.
“China appreciates the strong measures taken by Thailand to combat online gambling and phone and online scams,” Xi said, again according to a CCTV reported cited by the AFP news agency. “The two sides must continue to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and judicial cooperation,” he added, in order to “protect people’s lives and property.”
Paetongtarn sought to assure Xi that “the safety of people and tourists who visit Thailand is the government’s highest priority.” She added that her government is “ready to boost cooperation with China to tackle crimes passing through Thailand and to systematically warn about possible threats.”
Over the past month, at Beijing’s urging, Bangkok has taken a number of belated steps to crack down on the scam factories operating along its borders.
On Wednesday, it suspended electricity to three regions of neighboring Myanmar that are known havens of scamming syndicates, after the National Security Council determined that they now posed to Thailand’s national security. The oil firm PTT said yesterday that it was also preparing to suspend refined oil exports to Myanmar and is awaiting an official order from the government to do so. The news prompted motorists in Myawaddy, which sits across from the Thai town of Mae Sot in Tak province, to flock to petrol stations before the cuts take effect.
The decision also came after Liu Zhongyi, China’s assistant minister of public security, visited Thailand last week, during which he visited the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border and reportedly expressed frustration at the fact that the government had not yet cut off power and phone services to the scam centers operating there.
The same day that Xi and Paetongtarn met in Beijing, 61 people rescued from scam centers in Myawaddy were returned to Thailand, The Irrawaddy reported.