China is moving against the cyberscam tycoons making fortunes in Southeast Asia, driven by mounting public pressure and Beijing’s desire to keep control of judicial processes, analysts say.Across Southeast Asia, scammers lure internet users globally into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments.Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers — from whom they have extracted billions, prompting rising public anger — the scammers have expanded their operations into multiple languages to steal vast sums from victims around the world.Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing volunteers, sometimes trafficked foreign nationals who have been trapped and forced to work under threat of torture.Last year, a series of crackdowns largely driven by Beijing — which wields significant economic and diplomatic influence in the region — saw thousands of workers released from scam centres in Myanmar and Cambodia and repatriated to their home countries, many of them to China.Now Beijing has turned its focus to the bosses at the apex of the criminal pyramids, netting its biggest player so far with the arrest and extradition of Chen Zhi from Cambodia this week.The arrests were “almost certainly a result of Chinese pressure… coordinated behind closed doors”, according to Jason Tower, senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.Chen, a Chinese-born businessman, was indicted in October by US authorities, who said his Prince Group conglomerate was a cover for a “sprawling cyber-fraud empire”.Phnom Penh said it detained him following a request from Beijing, and after “several months of joint investigative cooperation” with Chinese authorities.Analysts say Phnom Penh’s inaction became intolerable to Beijing, which also wanted to avoid the embarrassment of Chen going on trial in the US.Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert and visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center, added that Chen “has a number of reported ties to Chinese government officials”.”China acted in order to prevent him from being extradited to the US given the political sensitivities,” he told AFP.- ‘Cut off the flow’ -Beijing made a show of the tycoon’s extradition, with video released by China’s public security ministry on Thursday showing the 38-year-old in handcuffs with a black bag over his head being escorted off a plane with black-clad armed security forces waiting on the runway.The sudden extradition of Chen from Cambodia –- where he had close ties to political elites before his naturalised citizenship was revoked by the Southeast Asian nation last month –- follows China scooping up other wanted fugitives abroad to mete out justice on its own soil.In November, She Zhijiang — the Chinese-born founder of Yatai Group, which allegedly built a notorious scam hub on the Thai-Myanmar border –- boarded a flight to China in handcuffs after spending three years behind bars in Bangkok.The same month Beijing held talks with law enforcement agencies from Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam agreeing to “intensify joint efforts against transnational telecom and online fraud”.China earlier publicly handed down death sentences to over a dozen members of powerful gang families with fraud operations in northern Myanmar, with their confessions of grisly crimes broadcast on national television.There could be more high-profile arrests to come: weeks ago the public security ministry issued arrest warrants for 100 more fugitives seen as the scam industry’s key financial backers, pledging Thursday to “cut off the flow”, “pull out the nails”, and “sever the chain”.But while the alleged leaders of some major scam groups have been arrested, Sims said the status quo for the wider industry was unlikely to change without sustained and “extremely high” pressure from the international community.”The vast majority of Cambodia’s hundreds of scam compounds are operating with strong support from the Cambodian government,” he said.Cambodian officials deny allegations of government involvement and say authorities are cracking down. Authorities had said in July that the tally of arrests had already reached 2,000. While in prison, She Zhijiang claimed to have previously acted as a spy for Beijing’s intelligence agency before he and his Myanmar urban development project were “betrayed” by the Chinese Communist Party.His lawyer told AFP that he had been pleading for Thai authorities to allow him to face trial in the US and said he feared “he will be deprived of due process” and “ultimately disappeared”.Some analysts pointed to limitations in China’s justice system that might prevent the full extent of the cyberscam schemes from being brought to light.”China is not an open society where investigation will reveal the true nature of things,” said Cambodian academic and former ambassador Pou Sothirak.burs-sjc/slb/sco/ceg/abs

Over the whine of buzzsaws and the steady whir of sanders, hundreds of Vietnamese workers in a factory outside Ho Chi Minh City hustle to fill orders for high-end furniture.It will adorn luxury hotels and residences across the Middle East, Europe and the United States, where the Vietnam-based Jonathan Charles furniture company has largely shrugged off US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.The US orders that account for more than half of the firm’s business remained steady in 2025, its CEO said this week, validating an earlier prediction his operation would weather the tariffs.”My initial reaction was panic for one hour,” chief executive Jonathan Sowter said of the 20 percent across-the-board tariffs announced by Washington in July.”But after thinking about it for a while, I realised it’s a level playing field. All my competitors are in Asia,” he told AFP in November.”Just adding 20 percent tariffs on Vietnamese products doesn’t mean America can make it cheaper than Vietnam. America will be double the price or triple the price to make what we make.”Vietnam has proved surprisingly resilient in spite of US levies many feared would crush its export-oriented growth model.It saw a 28 percent surge in exports to the United States last year while its trade surplus swelled to $134 billion, according to official figures released this week.Its economy grew at eight percent, beating analyst expectations and likely outpacing the rest of Asia, according to HSBC.”Although Vietnam was widely expected to be one of the economies with high tariff risks, its trade was not disrupted, but ballooned to a record high instead,” the bank’s ASEAN economist Yun Liu said Thursday in a note to clients. “Despite facing a 20 percent headline tariff from the US, Vietnam captured even more market share for certain goods, such as footwear, textiles and consumer electronics.”- ‘Optimistic’ -Not all Vietnamese manufacturers have been left unscathed. Lower-end producers with smaller margins in particular have suffered, with some announcing lay-offs or scaling back operations. Thanh Cong Group, which supplies major clothing brands such as Adidas and Lacoste, told AFP its shipments to the United States had dipped last year, although it would not say by how much.But producers of electronics, a sector in which foreign multinationals such as Samsung and Apple dominate the market, have seen a surge in US shipments, according to Liu and other analysts.Seafood and agricultural suppliers also saw modest export growth despite tariff uncertainty, according to official figures.Coffee sellers Eatu Cafe told AFP they had seen a surge in US orders.”There was a brief period of hesitation when Trump announced the 20 percent tariff,” said the company’s director Tran Dinh Trong.But US orders soon picked back up, he said, adding “our cooperative is optimistic and seeing positive signs to export to the US”.- ‘Transshipment?’ -Vietnam emerged as a major winner from Trump’s first trade war in 2018, receiving a flood of investment from Chinese manufacturers seeking to avoid US tariffs. But the widening trade surplus with Washington put Hanoi in Trump’s crosshairs when he reentered the White House in 2025.His “Liberation Day” announcement of 46 percent tariffs on Vietnamese imports shocked the country in April, even though they were later negotiated down to 20 percent for most goods.The Trump administration has said products illegally transshipped from China via a third country will face a 40 percent levy, although it has yet to define transshipment and negotiations on a final US-Vietnam trade deal are ongoing. Linh Nguyen, a Vietnam analyst at the consultancy Control Risks, said the surge in Vietnamese exports to the United States partly reflects increased final-stage assembly in Vietnam and its re-export of items produced elsewhere.”The data shows where shipments are leaving from, not necessarily where the value is being added,” she said.Many US buyers also likely moved their orders forward due to tariff uncertainty, artificially inflating the 2025 numbers, she added. Even so, HSBC’s Liu expects demand for electronics, among other products — partly driven by the boom in artificial intelligence — to sustain Vietnam’s exports this year.HSBC predicts the country’s trade-driven economy will expand nearly seven percent in 2026, while Hanoi is aiming for at least 10 percent growth.