Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai on February 13 raised the idea of building a wall along parts of its border with Cambodia as part of an effort to stop human trafficking. On March 3, the Thai Cabinet apparently discussed the subject, with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra requesting a feasibility study.
The wall probably won’t be built. The threat that it will be is an effort by Bangkok, goaded by China, to cajole Phnom Penh into doing more to clamp down on its vast cyber scam industry, which depends on trafficking untold thousands of people across the border. Cambodia has not yet publicly responded to the proposal, which is odd, while the usual pro-government mouthpieces have refrained from flabbergasting about the matter in the press (even odder), though that’s presumably because they haven’t yet been told the party line.
From what I have been told, the Cambodian government will not officially comment until it formally receives notice from Bangkok. The Thai government has provided so few details that you can almost imagine they don’t have any. The government spokesman’s statements have mostly been rhetorical. Even the idea itself is odd: it’s hard to imagine that a 50 kilometer-or-so border fence near Poipet (a fraction of the two countries’ 817-kilometer border) will deter criminals who can generate $12 billion a year in Cambodia alone. Moreover, how long does it take to build a wall?
It’s likely not a coincidence that the proposal (if you can call it that) came as Liu Zhongyi, China’s newly appointed anti-scam tsar, visited Bangkok and journeyed to the Cambodia-Thailand border for an inspection. Thailand has become the locus of Beijing’s efforts to combat Southeast Asia’s sprawling cyberscam industry, which the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) reckons could be worth around $40 billion a year in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar – or between a third and two-fifths of their formal economies.
There could be as many as 300,000 people working in the region’s scam compounds, most in slave-like conditions. Many start their descent into this inferno in Thailand, where they’re lured with promises of good jobs before being forced across the porous borders to compounds in Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar. That was the case for Chinese actor Wang Xing, who was rescued from a scam compound in Myanmar in January after being kidnapped in Thailand. His liberation has awakened ordinary Chinese to the problem – not only the loss of money but the tens of thousands of people who have been lured southwards and not heard of again. Beijing seems ever more desperate to stop the scammers from conning billions of dollars out of Chinese nationals, especially while many people’s life savings have already collapsed along with China’s property market.
Thailand, too, has started to see this as national security concern #1, primarily because of the chaos caused on its border with Myanmar. Jason Tower of USIP has called the Thai approach “shock and awe.” The result is more like whack-a-mole. Cyberscamming is decentralized, so when one cluster of compounds is hit, those unscathed simply load up vans with laptops and hostage workers and set off for somewhere new. With bulging pockets, they can easily buy off the local authorities in their new locale.
On paper, it should be much simpler to curb scammers in Cambodia than in Myanmar. The latter is in the midst of a frenzied civil war in which dozens of warring parties have created their own fiefdoms, ideal settings for cash-laden criminals. All tentacles of the Cambodian state, by comparison, are under the control of the ruling party. However, unlike most other Southeast Asian states, much of the Chinese-run scam syndicates’ income (potentially $12 billion a year) stays within Cambodia, which is routinely ranked among the 10 most corrupt countries in the world.
Some prominent politicians and oligarchs, as well as some of the country’s largest and most “trusted” conglomerates, have become even more wealthy than they were (and they were already ludicrously wealthy) thanks to the tithes collected from the scammers. One gets the sense that few want the party to end, even if “ironclad” friend China is calling closing time. It’s generally known that Beijing is displeased by Phnom Penh’s foot-dragging, although Hun Sen, the former prime minister but still the primary shot-caller, claims his country’s scam-busting efforts are being overlooked.
The threat of a border wall, and for the matter to be raised so publicly, seems designed so that Bangkok and Beijing can give Cambodia a little nudge in the right direction. After all, Phnom Penh hasn’t been pleased by China painting Cambodia as a dangerous country to visit. The Chinese blockbuster hit of 2023, “No More Bets,” a film about a Chinese youth being kidnapped and forced to work in a Southeast Asian scam compound (implicitly in Cambodia), was anecdotally a big reason why Chinese tourists haven’t returned en masse after the COVID-19 pandemic.
It doesn’t help, though, that all this comes as tensions run high between Thailand and Cambodia over Koh Kood/Koh Kut, a disputed island in the Gulf of Thailand. Only 12 years ago, their militaries clashed, leaving 35 troops dead, over ownership of the area near the ancient temples of Preah Vihear. On February 13, troops from both sides squared up near Prasat Ta Muen Thom, a temple in Thailand’s Surin province, with both sides blaming the other for escalating things.
Neither Cambodian Prime Hun Manet nor Paetongtarn wants a sovereignty dispute. They’d much prefer to stick to an agreement of sorts (the “MOU 44”) signed in the early 2000s by their fathers, former prime ministers Hun Sen and Thaksin Shinawatra. That deal essentially parks the question of ownership and says let’s split the profits if any oil is discovered. Yet the princeling and the princessling aren’t politically secure; nor can they be seen to be rejecting a drumstick as jingoists start to patter out a drumbeat for conflict. It’s hard to see the border wall idea being a result of these tensions, although it’s not going to help absolve Cambodian sensitives about being mocked and patronized by the Thais.
Anyway, the cajoling might be working. On March 6, Radio Free Asia reported that Huion Pay, the banking arm of Huione Group, reportedly the world’s “largest ever illicit online marketplace,” has been stripped of its banking license by Cambodia’s central bank. Huione Pay has been linked to a Telegram-based marketplace that has turned over an estimated $24 billion in illicit transactions, some linked to cyberscamming, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. (I hear that Huione’s Phnom Penh offices have been busy this week with people shipping out.) As it happens, one of Huione Pay’s directors is Hun To, Hun Manet’s cousin, who has been linked to various criminal activities in recent decades. If my sources are right, it might not be the only conglomerate to be getting its marching orders.