NBR.org September 17, 2025
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) faces a mounting challenge from transnational organized crime along its southern periphery. Myanmar has become the world’s most criminalized state, particularly after the 2021 military coup, providing a safe haven for illicit economies ranging from drug, human, and arms trafficking to illegal mining, cybercrime, and financial crimes.1 Other Mekong countries have also emerged as criminal hotspots, with Cambodia hosting around 100,000 trafficked victims in scam centers, according to a UN estimate.2 Sustained by corruption, weak governance, and entrenched Chinese criminal networks, these activities have disproportionately targeted Chinese nationals and thus have been framed as a matter of national security by the party-state.
In response, the PRC Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and other security agencies have intensified law-enforcement efforts in the Mekong region, designated as a “pilot zone” (实验区) for the Global Security Initiative (全球安全倡议). Chinese authorities have increased pressure on their neighbors and multiplied joint operations, resulting in the arrest and deportation of over 55,000 individuals from scam centers in northern Myanmar between August 2023 and April 2025.3 At the same time, Beijing has sought to pursue subregional security mechanisms under its leadership. These include coordinated Mekong river patrols with Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand, which were launched in 2011, and the Lancang-Mekong Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Center (LM-LECC), a spin-off intergovernmental body established in Yunnan in 2017 within the broader Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework.
Tiếp tục đọc “Policing Beyond Borders: China’s Law-Enforcement Expansion in the Mekong Region”
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