China’s big anti-scam campaign poses a paradox

Public anxiety over scam compounds along the Cambodian and Myanmar borders emerged as a key political issue in Thailand’s election last month. Criminal networks – linked to mainland Chinese actors – have been increasingly accused of coercing victims into cyber fraud. 

And questions continue to proliferate around how anti-scam efforts are constrained by political actors with ties to Chinese capital, criminal networks and markets. In turn, this has fueled local demands for “clean politics.”

The debate in Thailand unfolded within the context of Beijing’s intensifying campaign against transnational cyber scams in Southeast Asia. A new phase began last year with Thailand’s extradition of She Zhijiang to China after more than three years of legal challenges.

The Chinese national has been accused of building a vast illegal online gambling and fraud empire across Southeast Asia. Yet the timing of She’s extradition was politically significant. 

It came shortly before King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s landmark state visit to Beijing, underscoring how anti-scam enforcement has become intertwined with regional diplomacy and security cooperation.

Money laundering

She is widely regarded as a central figure behind Southeast Asia’s most notorious scam hubs, particularly Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko project near the Thai border. 

Promoted as a resort city for Chinese tourists, Shwe Kokko has instead become associated with online fraud, money laundering and human trafficking. If convicted in China, She could face severe penalties, including the death sentence. 

His extradition reinforced Beijing’s claim of “zero tolerance” for organized crime and signaled its willingness to pursue high-profile figures beyond its borders. Yet China’s anti-scam campaign cannot be understood solely through law enforcement and extradition. 

Domestic social mobilization has been equally important. The 2023 blockbuster No More Bets marked a turning point in Chinese public perceptions of online scams. By depicting the brutality of the compounds in Southeast Asia, it turned cyber fraud into a personal threat. 

The film heightened anxiety among Chinese visitors, prompting Southeast Asian governments – particularly Thailand – to address concerns over image and tourism.

This cultural moment coincided with high-profile scam-related incidents involving Chinese citizens overseas, including the kidnapping of actor Wang Xing last year. While the details of these cases remain contested, their symbolic impact was clear, fueling a broader moral panic. 

Public fear became a political resource that helped legitimize China’s increasingly assertive anti-scam agenda. Beijing rode the wave of social mobilization to introduce technology-driven governance to combat the issue. 

The National Anti-Fraud Centre app, launched by China’s Ministry of Public Security in 2021, sits at the heart of this strategy. Promoted as a tool to report scams and detect fraudulent calls and messages, it was aggressively marketed nationwide. 

It  reportedly surpassed 200 million downloads within six months, with the Chinese authorities claiming a success. According to Ministry of Public Security data, police solved 258,000 telecom fraud cases in 2025.

Personal data

It also intercepted billions of scam calls and messages and expanded cooperation with Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. Thousands of Chinese nationals linked to scam operations, particularly in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region, were repatriated. 

Judicial institutions have reinforced this approach by targeting not only leading organizers and financial backers but also frontline scammers. Those providing personal data, technical, promotional and money laundering services have also been caught up the dragnet.

Despite these achievements, China’s anti-scam campaign has drawn growing international scrutiny. Human rights organizations and independent researchers argue that the National Anti-Fraud Centre app has surveillance capabilities extending beyond fraud prevention. 

Technical analyses suggest that it can access users’ text messages, call logs, browsing histories and facial recognition data, creating the potential for large-scale monitoring. 

Users have also raised concerns about the lack of transparency around the scope, storage, sharing and retention of personal data, such as real names and identification numbers. 

These concerns are particularly acute in politically sensitive regions such as Tibet, where residents have reportedly faced pressure to install the app. This has blurred the line between public safety measures and coercive surveillance.

More fundamentally, China’s anti-scam enforcement exhibits a clear pattern of selectivity. Beijing has focused on suppressing crimes that directly target Chinese citizens, aligning enforcement with domestic stability and political risk management. 

As a result, transnational scam networks have adapted rather than disappeared, increasingly targeting victims in wealthier countries. The compounds linked to Chinese criminal networks and operating in Southeast Asia defrauded US citizens of about US$5 billion in 2024. 

Rather than dismantling the underlying scam economy, China’s crackdown may have simply reshaped its geography – displacing criminal activity outward while containing its most visible social and political costs at home.

Criminal networks

China’s anti-scam campaign presents a paradox. It shows the state’s ability to mobilize law enforcement, technology, public opinion and diplomacy against a real social threat. Yet it also reveals the limits of a security-centric domestic focus. 

Chinese pressure in Southeast Asia may accelerate crackdowns and extraditions, but it can also push criminal networks to adapt and relocate. This leaves many governments reacting within a regional context increasingly shaped by China’s enforcement priorities.

Effectively addressing transnational scams will require cooperation beyond fear-based mobilization and selective enforcement. It needs to target the financial, technological and governance conditions that enable these networks to thrive.

Junqing Zhang is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. 

This edited article is republished from East Asia Forum under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.