China encouraged armed offensive against Myanmar government to protest proliferation of online scams

The military junta controlling Myanmar has struggled to control all of its territory thanks in part to China backing rebel forces as a way of expressing its displeasure about cyberscam centers operating from the country. Myanmar's military junta – known as the Tatmadaw – seized power and ousted the administration of state …

[Sora2566]

At the government level, this is evil vs evil, with all the little people suffering in the meantime...

[AVR]

Old news?

I read about this months ago, though without any mention of the ICG.

[thames]

Re: Old news?

I seem to recall ICG being mentioned one time previously on El Reg, with respect to them complaining about China's efforts to crack down on international organized crime gang involvement in Myanmar and Cambodia. It was the same problem as in this article (foreign workers being held in slave-like conditions), just addressed from the angle of the Chinese government going after the parts of the criminal gangs who had assets in China.

The Chinese police were issuing orders to Chinese citizens operating in Myanmar and Cambodia and who had apparent links to dubious operations there to return home and report on the source of their wealth. If they failed to do so, their assets in China would be seized and family members would have their government benefits cut off. ICG were wailing about how awful and unfair this was while obfuscating the background of what it was they were complaining about.

While this current story sounds like an interesting one, I'm not personally inclined to take ICG's portrayal of things as giving a full and complete picture of what is actually going on.

[Cav]

Re: Old news?

" ICG were wailing about how awful and unfair this was..."

As they were right to do so. Whatever someone does, punishing their family members is unacceptable.

[diodesign]

ICG

Hi -- if you did read about a while back then we'll check it out and reflect that in the piece. But our article is basically reporting the ICG findings.

C.