In Southeast Asia, Chinese spies come to the table

LETTER FROM BANGKOK Screenshot from a program on the Al-Jazeera channel, dedicated to businessman She Zhijiang. AL-JAZIRA She Zhijiang, the Chinese founder of a “special economic zone” in Shwe Kokko, a town in eastern Burma near the Thai border, which has become a cyber fraud hub, was recruited by an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security. This is what the person concerned confided, by teleconference from his prison in Thailand, to a team from Al-Jazeera, the Qatari news television channel, in an investigative documentary broadcast on September 26. He has been fighting his extradition to China for two years. If the mobilization of “patriots” from the diaspora and triads, wherever they are, in the service of the Chinese Communist Party is an old story, these revelations confirm the troubled game that Beijing is playing in Southeast Asia, in the era of the “new Silk Roads”, the flagship project of President Xi Jinping. She Zhijiang is known to have done business in 2017 in Burma with the leader of a local paramilitary militia from Shwe Kokko, enriched by all kinds of trafficking. His company, Yatai International, registered in Hong Kong, then promised to raise the equivalent of 13.55 billion euros to create a special economic zone dedicated to “smart industries”. In the summer of 2020, nothing is going well. Converging testimonies describe the barely built buildings of Shwe Kokko as centers of cyber fraud. Chinese media reveals that She Zhijiang has been wanted in China since 2014 for illegal online games. And the Burmese government of Aung San Suu Kyi is demanding accountability from Beijing. So much so that the Chinese embassy in Burma has to deny any connection between Yatai and the Belt and Road Initiative, the official name of the “new silk roads”. Also read the report: Article reserved for our subscribers Shwe Kokko, Burmese capital of Internet crime Add to your selections In 2021, Interpol issues a red notice at the request of China against She Zhijiang, and Thailand arrests her in August 2022. In the meantime, China has changed priorities: online scam centers targeting Chinese people from Southeast Asia are a scourge to be eradicated. “I was obeying orders” On the Qatari channel, She Zhijiang revealed that he had been recruited at the end of 2016 in the Philippines by an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security. He offers to drop the 2014 prosecution against him in China in exchange for his cooperation. His recruiter took him to Cambodia, where he obtained nationality, as well as to Burma. “I was obeying orders,” he maintains. His Chinese nationality is cancelled. The signing of the agreement between his company and local partner Shwe Kokko was organized, he says, by the Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Federation, an official organization tasked with rallying loyal overseas Chinese towards the Communist Party. He also became one of its vice-presidents. “ [Mes officiers traitants] have worked hard to raise my profile,” he admits. The federation magazine devoted a cover to him with the title: “The story of a man without history”. In November 2018, he was among the guests at an official gala during Xi Jinping’s visit to the Philippines. He travels to China several times. However, he said, he would have been immediately arrested when crossing the border if he was still wanted. You have 52.34% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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