[yorwba]

> the EAO that was providing protection to Chinese pig-butchering gangs in that region of Myanmar (Kachin Independence Army)

Kachin is not a relevant location of scam centers. You can find articles that claim otherwise, e.g. https://www.ctol.digital/news/inside-worlds-largest-scam-emp... but from the fact that they mention the Thai border and the city of Myawaddy, which is in Kayin/Karen State, it's clear that they're just confusing Kachin and Kayin.

The Kachin Independence Army seems to finance itself through mining instead.

While it's true that some scammers were recently sentenced to death in China https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78nrx309kzo and this only happened after the Kachin Independence Army disrupted the rare-earth trade with China, that's just a temporal coincidence. The scammers were captured in 2023 in Laukkai in northern Shan State near the Chinese border by the MNDAA (an anti-junta armed group dominated by ethnic Chinese) as part of Operation 1027. China is rumored to have assisted the operation in order to crack down on the scam centers in junta-controlled territory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_1027#Cyber-scamming_... The Kachin Independence Army also participated in Operation 1027, but in Kachin, not Shan.

I don't know about Cambodia.

[alephnerd]

The MNDAA is a close ally of the KIA as both are members of the Northern Alliance, and all the Northern Alliance members saw their relations with China tank after Chinese brokered talks with the Tatmadaw failed [0] last December.

As a result of that failure, all the Northern Alliance members began trying to pivot to other states or in the case of the MNDAA faced the brunt of the Chinese crackdown.

[0] - https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/juntamndaa-peace-talks-doo...

[yorwba]

All of that postdates the MNDAA crackdown on scam centers, during which relations with China were excellent. It seems like after Operation 1027, the junta got the message and started handing over their own allies in the scam industry https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-junta-transfers... at which point China didn't have much reason to continue supporting anti-junta forces in their offensive and preferred freezing the frontline with a ceasefire instead.

Maybe the reduction of Chinese support encouraged the Kachin Independence Army to seek cooperation with India, but you seemed to be claiming that causality was in the opposite direction (while also misidentifying who was running the scam centers), which I think is clearly contradicted by the timeline of events.