JOCKEYING FOR POSITION
Any effort to combat global cybercrime should include issues surrounding data access, surveillance and cross-border policing efforts. It would be difficult, however, to imagine a set of issues where cooperation between the US and China would be less likely.
Predictably, both countries are jockeying for position, trying to ensure that their digital tools, digital standards and security partnerships become the preferred option in Southeast Asia.
China’s approach to the issue prioritises cyber sovereignty and relies on state-controlled surveillance applications, centralised citizen tracking systems and police deployments to neighbouring countries.
The police deployments have certainly produced impressive results. Through joint law enforcement efforts between China and Myanmar, over 57,000 Chinese citizens have been arrested on suspicion of cyberfraud. As with China’s highly effective citizen tracking systems, however, the focus is on identifying Chinese victims and perpetrators.
The US has traditionally stood for open, interoperable systems and relies on private sector encryption safeguards, intelligence sharing, AI-enabled detection and human rights protection.
These aid the fight against scam centres in a number of ways, such as helping to protect personal data that scammers can exploit, alerting consumers to potential scams and making at-risk individuals less vulnerable to human traffickers. The US sees scam centres as part of a global cybercrime and human trafficking problem, with the US leading interdiction efforts.
China, however, has already positioned itself well to play a preeminent role in regional anti-cybercrime operations in Southeast Asia.
China leads the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Center, a joint mechanism that includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. It has facilitated joint operations, intelligence sharing, repatriations and targeted raids since 2023, with a new phase launched in 2025.