The mercantile spirit of the Chinese

There’s been a lot of VoIP scam cases in Cambodia since late 2018, about which we made an article on page 14. I want you to read it for the detail but to explain it briefly, it is a phishing scam using IP phones. Scam cases are not so rare and phishing is also not a new scamming technique. But there’re a couple of surprising facts about these VoIP cases. First, they are committed by Chinese nationals residing in Cambodia targeting Chinese people in main land China. Secondly, the size of the fraud group arrested is quite large in every case. A couple hundred of Chinese nationals are arrested and deported in most cases. It is very scary to think that this much people target their own nationals and try to defraud money. And it might be even scarier to think what if they, who set out this large scale thing, put their effort into something straight. I’m not supposed to treat criminals and people with straight business venture equally but every time a new VoIP scam case is reported, it reminds me of how good Chines people are at setting out something bold, deciding and moving it into action. It is obvious when you look how Japanese companies are having a hard time competing with Chinese companies.
It might be because of their ample capital that make it easier for them to have these abilities but I think it is not the only factor. It should be more like something inborn. Chinese restaurants in Phnom Penh is one of the episodes that shows how much they are passionate about business.
As you know, there’re a lot of Chinese restaurants almost everywhere in Phnom Penh. Some of them are run by Chinese-Khmer families but some are run by pure Chinese families who borrowed money in China and migrated to Cambodia to open their restaurant. I’ve heard a lot of stories of someone moved to Cambodia and set up a business from scratch but I haven’t met anyone who borrowed money in Japan and brought his/her whole family to Cambodia to start a business that is not even guaranteed to be successful. It is not only the comparison with Japanese but I don’t think there’re so much ethnic groups with stronger guts in business as Chinese. There may be hints of their mercantile spirit lying around that are closer than you think.