Exposing the CCP’s anti-Burmese telecom propaganda scam – The Epoch Times

[The Epoch Times, December 09, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Cheng Wen) “Among these 31,000 people, there is no online fraud leader. Before we launched the operation, a Myanmar military helicopter picked up these people ” said a spokesman for a Kokang armed group that cooperated with the CCP leadership in cracking down on telecom fraud groups in northern Myanmar last month.

Experts said that among the approximately 31,000 telecom fraud suspects in northern Myanmar who were handed over to the CCP, many were actually victims who were forced to participate in the fraud.

The Chinese Communist Party has broadcast high-profile arrest scenes of some well-known electronic fraud suspects and videos of their confessions on national television programs to show the CCP’s achievements in cracking down on electronic fraud groups in northern Myanmar and protecting the rights and interests of Chinese people in mainland China. But the actual situation is different from the CCP’s propaganda.

The fundamental reason why the Ming family was eliminated was because of the killing of undercover CCP police officers.

In mid-November, the Chinese police announced that they had issued arrest warrants for four Myanmar Kokang people named Ming on suspicion of Internet fraud, murder and illegal detention. The Ming family is one of the most powerful “Five Families” in Kokang. Some of its members hold important positions in the Kokang government and the police station. It is said that they all have Chinese passports.

Days later, China Central Television broadcast footage of police capturing three of the four suspects on the border in southwestern Yunnan province.

According to CCTV, on November 15, when the Kokang authorities tried to arrest Ming Xuechang, the head of the Ming family and one of the leaders of a suspected electronic fraud group, Ming Xuechang committed suicide.

A statement issued by Myanmar’s military government said that Ming Xuechang shot himself during the arrest.

According to Kokang local media reports, after a violent shootout occurred in the Ming family compound on October 20, the Chinese Communist Party authorities stepped up their crackdown and vowed to eradicate the e-fraud syndicate.

Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Global Times” who is known as the “Pan Holder”, published a long post on Weibo on November 28, praising the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on the telecom fraud group in northern Myanmar as showing the “power of the authorities to “punish them even from afar”” and determination” and “effect.”

However, Hu Xijin also confirmed the previous rumors about the Ming family killing undercover CCP policemen. He wrote on Weibo: “It eventually led to the destruction of the Ming family, which is said to have brutally killed four of our undercover military police.”

According to previous rumors, the Kokang Ming family detained hundreds of Chinese citizens in its “Crouching Tiger Villa” electronic fraud park. These people were deceived and then forced to engage in telecommunications network fraud. On October 20, the Ming family prepared to transfer these Chinese people to other places. Among these people, several undercover CCP police showed their identities to prevent the Ming family from moving, but they were killed by the Ming family militiamen.

The CCP was “furious” after learning the news, and immediately sent a letter to the Kokang authorities on the 21st requesting an investigation, and “urged Ming Xuechang to give us a clear answer and explain the truth.”

“Killing chickens to scare monkeys” deters other forces, but the CCP has not eliminated the root of the fraud in northern Myanmar

A few days before the CCP announced that it had issued an arrest warrant against the Ming family, several “confession videos” of several Kokang celebrities began to circulate on Chinese social media. The contents of their confessions were similar.

One of them is Wei Qingtao, the son of Wei Chaoren, the patriarch of the Wei family in the Kokang “Five Families”. In his “confession video”, he urged his family members to let go of the Chinese who were forced to participate in the fraud. He said that this time “the Chinese government ‘We will never withdraw our troops until we eliminate the e-mail fraud.’ If there are any more Chinese casualties, they will ‘pay with blood.'”

The other is Liu Zhengqi, the president of the “Fu Lai Group”, the largest enterprise group in the Kokang region. He is the second brother of Liu Zhengxiang among the “five major families” in Kokang. Another person who confessed in the video was Ming Xuechang’s son-in-law Bi Huijun.

Huazong, a well-known Chinese documentary producer who has been reporting on Myanmar affairs for more than a decade, said: “They (the CCP) want to send a signal. To use a Chinese proverb, they want to ‘kill the chicken to scare the monkey’, and no one should Provide shelter to these people.”

When the “Three Brothers Alliance”, a small minority of Kokang’s democratic armed forces, cooperated with the CCP in combating telecom fraud in northern Myanmar, a source close to the alliance’s senior officials revealed to The Epoch Times: “The alliance’s fight back against Kokang is supported by the CCP. The purpose is to restore ‘absolute influence’ over Myanmar.” This seems to show that the Ming family’s killing of an undercover CCP policeman has made the CCP feel that its influence in Myanmar has declined.

However, it is still unclear how comprehensive the CCP’s crackdown on telecom fraud in northern Myanmar will be. On the other hand, northern Myanmar also has governance methods and corruption patterns similar to those of the CCP.

At the end of October, the Chinese Communist Party also issued arrest warrants for two senior officials in the Wa State region of northern Myanmar. One of them is the Minister of Construction of Wa State, and the other is a famous county magistrate. Days later, the Wa Communist Party said the two men had been expelled from the party. It was unclear whether they were detained.

Wa State’s official media “Voice of Wa State” reported that Wa State police handed over 194 Chinese citizens to Chinese authorities on November 28. Wa officials say such handovers are routine.

“Once we find them (the fraud suspects), we will hand them over to them (the Chinese Communist Party),” said Lu Jiantang, the Wa State’s deputy minister of external relations, whose job it is to ensure that people who escape from Kokang Telecom fraudsters are not included.

Wa State is also known as the Second Special Administrative Region of Shan State in Myanmar. The first special zone in Shan State is now called the Kokang Autonomous Region. Both Wa State and Kokang border China’s Yunnan Province and are the main gathering areas for Chinese in northern Myanmar.

Yin Masan, director of the Kokang Administrative Office, told the Associated Press that Kokang has sent about 26,000 people back to China in recent weeks, 16,000 of whom went voluntarily. “Our police and authorities are cracking down hard (online) fraud)”.

However, it is said that Bai Socheng, the first chairman of the Kokang Autonomous Region and the main military commander of Kokang, was also involved in telecommunications fraud, but none of his family members were arrested. Bai Suocheng is the patriarch of the Bai family among the “five major families” of Kokang.

The Ministry of Public Security of the Communist Party of China announced on November 18 that authorities in northern Myanmar had handed over approximately 31,000 criminal suspects to China, 63 of whom were key members of the fraud group.

However, locals in northern Myanmar believe that all key criminals have been removed in advance. Many of the Chinese who were deceived into northern Myanmar with high-paying jobs are victims who are forced to continue the fraud. These actions to combat electronic fraud It does not include the arrest of the leader of Myanmar’s electronic fraud syndicate.

Li Kyar Wen, a spokesman for the Kokang National Democratic Alliance Army, one of the armed groups leading the anti-electronic fraud operation, told the Associated Press: “There is no online fraud leader among these 31,000 people. Before we launched the operation, A Myanmar military helicopter picked them up.”

Criminal syndicates can still exploit the instability and corruption prevalent in border areas to continue their scams, but it may become more difficult.

“The risks have become greater,” said Richard Horsey, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, which is tracking the situation in Myanmar. “However, there are huge economic incentives to maintain the momentum. Rewards. Still there.”

It is reported that in the past, criminal activities in northern Myanmar that defrauded mainland Chinese people from their savings through phone calls and the Internet could generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue a year.

The Kokang opposition armed forces took the opportunity to expand their power and the Myanmar military junta asked for help from the CCP

The “Three Brothers Alliance” launched an offensive against the Shan State Army in northern Myanmar on October 27. Members of the “Three Brothers Alliance” include the Kokang National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.

The Kokang National Democratic Alliance Army stated that this offensive has two main goals. The first is to defeat the forces supported by the Myanmar government that control the Kokang; the second is to combat Internet fraud.

The leader of this armed group is Peng Deren. His father, Peng Jiasheng, was once the “King of Kokang”. Four of the current “five major families” of Kokang were once Peng Jiasheng’s former subordinates.

In 2009, when the Kokang National Democratic Alliance Army led by Peng Jiasheng had a military conflict with the Myanmar military government, his subordinates Bai Suocheng, Wei Chaoren, Liu Guoxi and Ming Xuechang all split with him and defected to the Myanmar military government, resulting in Peng Jiasheng’s defeat. . Afterwards, Peng Jiasheng retreated to China, and he and his Kokang National Democratic Alliance Army have been protected by the CCP. After Peng Jiasheng’s death, his son Peng Deren continued to lead this armed force against the Myanmar government.

After Peng Jiasheng withdrew from Kokang, the sphere of influence he left behind was first divided among the Bai family, Wei family, Liu Guoxi family and Liu Zhengxiang family. The Ming family rose after the four major families.

This time, Peng Deren, who cooperated with the Chinese Communist Party in cracking down on telecom fraud syndicates in northern Myanmar, clearly targeted the Ming family, the Bai family, the Wei family, and the Liu Guoxi family, but not the Liu Zhengxiang family. This shows that Peng Deren is also taking the opportunity to take revenge.

The offensive of the “Three Brothers Alliance” has indeed put pressure on the Kokang authorities and even the Myanmar military junta. In less than a month, they seized multiple crossing points along Myanmar’s border with China and allowed Myanmar’s military junta to lose control of northern Myanmar.

The coalition’s pressure on Myanmar’s military junta may also help another anti-government armed force – the pro-democracy forces supporting Aung San Suu Kyi – return to power.

This made both the Myanmar military government and the Chinese Communist Party worry that the situation would get out of control. The Chinese Communist Party urgently called on all parties to cease fire and deployed live-fire exercises on the Chinese side of the border for three days starting from November 25.

Myanmar’s military junta has also been supported by the Chinese Communist Party for decades.

On December 6, Myanmar Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Than Swe met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during the 8th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Beijing.

“Myanmar still faces many domestic challenges and hopes to continue to receive support and help from China to achieve domestic peace and stability,” Dansui told Wang Yi, according to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This is the first time that the Myanmar military government has publicly asked the CCP to help it stabilize the political situation after the CCP’s crackdown on telecom fraud in northern Myanmar.

Kalvin Fung Ka-shing, who studies Southeast Asian politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University, said the military government is trying to strengthen ties with China, India and Russia after a rebel offensive led to the defeat of Myanmar’s northern states.

He said Myanmar’s military junta “may want to ensure its friendship with Beijing in order to deprive ethnic armed groups of diplomatic support”.

Koh King Kee, chairman of the Center for New Inclusive Asia, a Malaysian think tank, said that due to Myanmar’s isolation from the West, its military government has become more dependent on China (Chinese Communist Party).

Xu Qingqi said that Myanmar’s military junta needs the help of the Chinese Communist Party “to act as a mediator and reach a truce agreement with the ethnic armed alliance to maintain its power, because China (Chinese Communist Party) has considerable influence on the alliance.”

He believes that under the attack of the “Three Brothers Alliance”, the Myanmar military government is “in danger of collapse.”

Wang Yi told Dansui that China and Myanmar have “achieved remarkable results” in combating telecommunications fraud and “effectively deterred criminals.” This seems to imply that the CCP’s support for the “Three Brothers Alliance” can end here for the time being.

Editor in charge: Li Lin#