HONG KONG (Reuters) – China hopes Myanmar achieves national reconciliation quickly and continues its political transformation, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said on Wednesday.
Wang, who met Myanmar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Than Swe in Beijing, said both countries should strengthen law enforcement cooperation to eradicate telecom fraud, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Myanmar’s military has been locked in a surge of fighting with three ethnic rebel groups in the biggest challenge to its grip on the Southeast Asian nation since seizing power from an elected government in a 2021 coup.
Meanwhile, China has been cracking down on telecom fraud syndicates in Myanmar that it says have swindled Chinese nationals of large sums of money.
“China hopes that Myanmar will achieve national reconciliation and continue its political transformation process under the constitutional framework as soon as possible,” Wang said in the meeting.
He acknowledged that recent cooperation between the two countries in cracking down telecom fraud and rescuing those trapped in northern Myanmar had yielded results.
“Both sides should strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation and completely eradicate the cancer of online gambling and telecom fraud,” he said.
Beijing said last month that Myanmar authorities have handed over 31,000 telecom fraud suspects to China. Chinese state media reported that over 100,000 people engage in telecom fraud each day in at least 1,000 scam centres in Myanmar.
(Reporting by Ethan Wang in Beijing, Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong; Editing by Christina Fincher)
