> the virtual cold war against the personal finances of foreign citizenry
Comparing a scam to war is inaccurate. The Cold War was a war running cold with the potential to go hot. Cambodia and America are not going to war over this.
Comparing a scam to war is inaccurate. The Cold War was a war running cold with the potential to go hot. Cambodia and America are not going to war over this.
Meanwhile, China never cracked down against similar scams in Cambodia. Most notably, Prince Group remains unsanctioned in China and it's leadership are Mainland Chinese in origin.
While pig butchering (along with opium and human trafficking and other organized crime activities) are a major reason behind Chinese involvement in Myanmar, ignoring the very real proxy war going on between Chinese and Indian interests in Myanmar fails to contextualize some of the decisions that both countries make within Myanmar.
This also explains why you don't see a similar crackdown in Cambodia, which is solidly within the Chinese sphere at this point.
[0] - https://www.stimson.org/2025/rare-earths-and-realpolitik-fut...
[1] - https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/ignorin...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-explores-rare-eart...
Kachin is not a relevant location of scam centers. You can find articles that claim otherwise, e.g. https://www.ctol.digital/news/inside-worlds-largest-scam-emp... but from the fact that they mention the Thai border and the city of Myawaddy, which is in Kayin/Karen State, it's clear that they're just confusing Kachin and Kayin.
The Kachin Independence Army seems to finance itself through mining instead.
While it's true that some scammers were recently sentenced to death in China https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78nrx309kzo and this only happened after the Kachin Independence Army disrupted the rare-earth trade with China, that's just a temporal coincidence. The scammers were captured in 2023 in Laukkai in northern Shan State near the Chinese border by the MNDAA (an anti-junta armed group dominated by ethnic Chinese) as part of Operation 1027. China is rumored to have assisted the operation in order to crack down on the scam centers in junta-controlled territory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_1027#Cyber-scamming_... The Kachin Independence Army also participated in Operation 1027, but in Kachin, not Shan.
I don't know about Cambodia.
As a result of that failure, all the Northern Alliance members began trying to pivot to other states or in the case of the MNDAA faced the brunt of the Chinese crackdown.
[0] - https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/juntamndaa-peace-talks-doo...
Maybe the reduction of Chinese support encouraged the Kachin Independence Army to seek cooperation with India, but you seemed to be claiming that causality was in the opposite direction (while also misidentifying who was running the scam centers), which I think is clearly contradicted by the timeline of events.
It's reminiscent of stories about Russian malware doing nothing on machines with Cyrillic keyboard layouts.
Cambodia continues to have scam centers targeting Putonghua speakers (including PRC nationals), but there hasn't been a similar crackdown on such activities due to Chinese pressure.
The crackdown in Kokang happened after China flipped to supporting the Tatmadaw against the Northern Alliance [0] and India began peeling historically India-aligned members of the alliance like the KIA and the Arakan Army back into Indian orbit [1].
P.S. Circa 2 years ago, a large portion of Chinese in SF Chinatown became Kokang and Cambodian Chinese. Bamar, Kuki-Zo, and Kachin Myanmarese primarily reside in Daly City, Ingleside/Outer Mission, and Oakland/East Bay.
SF has a lot of Asian and Latiné subcultures and communities - it's kind of insane how underdocumented it is under the guise of "Asian" and "Latino"
[0] - https://www.stimson.org/2025/too-little-too-late-china-steps...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/india-extends-unp...
China literally runs black ops offices in New York [1] and Australia.
> also it does not want to upset Cambodia or Myanmar government when not necessary
There is no government in Myanmar. China (and India) heavily intervene in that conflict.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/new-york-resident-pl...
I'm not sure I buy that definition. I think most understand a Cold War to be simply a "war" done without weapons but by other means — via economic means, propaganda, etc.
Like whom? We (and let's be honest, every other great power) are at war with many countries all of the time, and while they may be cold for long stretches, they absolutely (a) go hot from time to time and (b) are constantly threatening to go hot.
To me "war" is a state of "no rules" hurting. IE nuclear, biological, any weapon goes. Anything less is an exercise in restraint - even if still quite terrible in it's own right.
Which means there are lots of "exercises" of varying lethality, risk profiles, spheres of influence, etc. And yes many countries are jockeying against other countries in varying ways.
Large scale scams against other countries could be seen as an unintended (not a planned government action) exercise that is condoned by the government.