BEIJING – The central government wants the Philippines to stop all forms of online gambling, as it continues cracking down on a practice it says causes illegal outflow of money.
While Beijing appreciates the move to halt the issuance of new licenses, “we hope the Philippines will go further and ban all online gambling,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, according to the transcript of his regular presss briefing in Beijing on Tuesday posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in Manila.
The comments are the latest signal that Beijing is mounting pressure on Southeast Asian nations in its effort to stamp out online gambling which it says causes hundreds of millions of yuan to illegally flow out of its economy. Online and phone betting has exploded in countries such as the Philippines and Cambodia over the last few years due to demand from gamblers in mainland China.
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