Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) began his visits to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia on Monday in hopes of upholding multilateral trade. According to CNN, his diplomatic tour of the region’s major export-reliant economies is a bid to position his country as a stable partner in contrast to the United States.
At the same time, Cambodia’s General Immigration Department sent approximately 500 Chinese and Taiwanese suspects involved in Cambodian telecommunications fraud to China as a goodwill gesture to Beijing.
According to information from Cambodia’s Phnom Penh International Airport, China’s Public Security Ministry dispatched three special transport planes to carry people from Phnom Penh to Wenzhou, China. All planes left Cambodia between 11 p.m. Sunday and 12:15 a.m. Monday, with all suspects in Wenzhou by Monday morning.
The group of 500 suspects included 179 Taiwanese. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has expressed its serious concerns and lodged a strong protest with Cambodia over the deportation decision, accusing the Cambodian government of bowing to Chinese pressure, especially in its refusal to provide a full list of Taiwanese deportees.