China foreign minister meets Southeast Asian officials amid relations push

SHANGHAI, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met separately with officials from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar on Tuesday, as the world’s second largest economy moves to expand relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors. 

China’s support could be particularly valuable for Myanmar, where officials are responding to an ongoing civil war. 

Wang said that China supported Myanmar’s government in achieving political reconciliation and that Thailand and China should boost efforts to tackle gambling and telecommunications fraud, according to statements released by China’s foreign ministry.

Thailand and China have worked to combat fast-growing networks of illegal call centres along the Thai border with Myanmar and Cambodia, often staffed by trafficked workers, that aim to defraud people in phone and online scams.

Myanmar’s military-backed government is run by the former general who led a 2021 coup, triggering a civil war that the ​United Nations estimates has killed 100,000 people and displaced more than 3.5 million. 

(Reporting by Andrew Silver, Additional reporting from Beijing newsroom, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Kirsten Donovan)

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