China urges Philippines to ‘ban all online gambling’ to support its cross-border crackdown
- The Philippines’ gambling sector has boomed in recent years, due to insatiable demand from Chinese players
- Beijing says the sector is fuelling money laundering, and that Chinese citizens are being drawn into an industry that causes social issues and crime at home
The country’s gaming regulator has banned licences for new online gaming firms, as lawmakers and some ministers have called for tighter controls on visitors from China, saying many turn out to be illegal workers whose presence fans security concerns.
Although the Chinese government welcomed Manila’s move to stop accepting applications for online gaming licences, 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.
Online gambling is a most dangerous tumour in modern society.
The spokesman also lauded a ban on online gambling announced by Cambodia.