Movie Exposes Chinese Cybercrime in BurmaThe crime action movie “No More Bets” has been a hit in Chinese theaters this summer for portraying Chinese cybercrime in Burma. Criminal syndicates reportedly lure and kidnap Chinese citizens and force them to work for cybercrime groups, which allegedly have ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a U.S. report. According to data released on Aug. 28 by Maoyan, China’s most prominent movie box office analysis platform, “No More Bets” has consistently topped ticket sales for the fourth consecutive weekend with gross revenue exceeding 3.4 billion yuan (about $467 million). The movie struck a chord with the Chinese audience, as cases of Chinese people being lured out of the country and trafficked to Burma (also known as Myanmar) to work as scammers have been widely reported....

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The company logo on the headquarters of China Evergrande Group in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, on Sept. 26, 2021. (Aly Song/Reuters)Is the “Chinese miracle” fading to black? The world’s second-largest economy is grappling with a plethora of different challenges. The country is facing below-trend economic growth, a plummeting currency, rising youth unemployment, shrinking manufacturing activity, and a property sector seeped in financial problems. China is wrestling with “huge structural problems” that threaten the overall economic moving forward, says Nicholas Lardy, the non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), adding that Beijing will unlikely see growth rates of 8 or 9 percent again. “The boom is over,” Mr. Lardy said. Last year, the Chinese economy reported an annual growth rate of 3 percent. In 2021 and 2020, it was 8.4 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively. Since growing more than 14 percent in 2007, GDP growth has been on a downward trajectory....

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