LETTER FROM BANGKOK
She Zhijiang, the Chinese founder of a “special economic zone” in Shwe Kokko, a city in eastern Burma near the border with Thailand that has become a hub for cyber fraud, was recruited by an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security. This is what the interested party confided, by teleconference from his prison in Thailand, to a team from Al-Jazeera, Qatar’s information 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 may be, in the service of the Chinese Communist Party is an old story, these revelations confirm the turbulent game that Beijing is playing in Southeast Asia, in the era of “ New Silk Roads”, the emblematic project of President Xi Jinping.
It is known that She Zhijiang did business in 2017 in Burma with the leader of a local Shwe Kokko paramilitary militia, enriched by all types 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 Shwe Kokko’s barely constructed buildings as centers of cyber fraud. Chinese media reveal that She Zhijiang has been wanted in China since 2014 for illegal online gaming. And Aung San Suu Kyi’s Burmese government is demanding accountability from Beijing. So much so that the Chinese embassy in Burma is forced to deny any connection between Yatai and the Belt and Road Initiative, the official name of the “new silk roads”.
In 2021, Interpol issues a red alert at China’s request against She Zhijiang, and Thailand arrests her in August 2022. Meanwhile, China has changed priorities: online scam hubs targeting Chinese from Southeast Asia are a scourge that must 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 citizenship, as well as Burma. “I was obeying orders.”, he maintains. His Chinese nationality is cancelled.
The signing of the agreement between his company and its local partner Shwe Kokko was organized, he says, by the Federation of Overseas Chinese Businessmen, an official organization charged with uniting loyal overseas Chinese to the Communist Party. He also became one of its vice presidents. “ [Mes officiers traitants] I worked hard to raise my profile. “he admits. The federation magazine dedicated a cover to him with the title: “The story of a man without history.” In November 2018, he was among those invited to an official gala during Xi Jinping’s visit to the Philippines. He traveled to China several times. However, he said, he would have been arrested immediately upon crossing the border if he was still wanted.
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