Global China’s Dark Side: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds

Based on her new book Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds (Verso, 2025, co-authored with Ivan Franceschini and Mark Bo), Ling Li explores the rise of a fast-growing industry of online fraud in countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Operating from heavily guarded compounds, these scams rely on the labour of thousands of people—many trafficked or deceived—forced to defraud others under threats of violence and confinement. Although transnational in scope, the scam compounds have been built and sustained by Chinese business networks and criminal actors. At the same time, the Chinese government has taken a leading role in regional crackdowns, working to dismantle operations and repatriate victims. Drawing on survivor testimonies, field research, and investigative reporting, this talk foregrounds the lived experiences of those trapped in these systems of coercion and examines how Global China intersects with new forms of exploitation at the margins of the digital economy.