China urges Philippines to ban online gambling

MANILA, Aug 21 (Reuters) - China has said it hopes the
Philippines will ban online gaming to support its crackdown on
cross-border gambling, which it said foreign criminals had used
to embezzle funds and illegally recruit workers.
The Philippine gaming regulator has banned licences for new
online gaming firms, as lawmakers and some ministers have called
for tighter controls on Chinese visitors, saying many are
illegal workers whose presence fans security concerns.
Although China welcomed the Philippine move to stop
accepting applications for online gaming licenses, its foreign
ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, "We hope the Philippines
will go further and ban all online gambling."
The remarks were in the transcript of a news conference
published on Wednesday by the Chinese embassy in Manila.
"We hope it will further strengthen law enforcement with
China and jointly tackle criminal activities including online
gambling and cyber fraud," Geng told a news conference on
Tuesday, the transcript showed.
He also lauded a ban on online gambling announced by
Cambodia. "Online gambling is a most dangerous tumour in modern
society detested by people all across the world," Geng said of
the Cambodian move. "It is a shared hope that this problem could
be effectively dealt with."
An influx of Chinese into the Philippines started in 2016,
coinciding with the rise of President Rodrigo Duterte, who
backed the gaming regulator's move to license internet gambling.
The number of Chinese holders of work permits quadrupled in
the two years since Duterte took office to about 110,000 in
2018, government data showed, making China the biggest source of
expatriate workers in the Philippines.
That compared with nearly 5,000 issued to Japanese and just
over 600 to U.S. citizens.
Vast sums of Chinese money were ending up in the Philippines
via money laundering and underground banking, China's embassy in
Manila has said, adding that citizens were being illegally drawn
into an industry that fuelled social problems and crime at home.
It said citizens' rights were being violated and dozens were
kidnapped, tortured and physically abused by local employers who
confiscated their passports, calling for measures to prevent and
punish the Philippine casinos.
Philippine offshore gaming operators are a big boon for the
economy, however, with China's insatiable appetite for gambling
helping to fuel office and residential demand and drive retail
spending and a mushrooming of businesses catering to Chinese.