Zhongxin. com, Chengdu, April 23 (Wu Pinghua, Huang Jing) Recently, the Airport Economic Zone Branch of Ziyang Public Security Bureau in Sichuan cracked a case in which 11 people sneaked across the national border. At present, the principal offender Gan was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and the rest were sentenced to criminal detention ranging from three to six months.

　　In the early morning, cross the mountain and walk for 10 hours to North Myanmar.

　　Back in 2020, a friend found Xiaoqiu (a pseudonym), claiming that there was an opportunity to "make big money" in northern Myanmar. Not only could he stay in a high-end hotel, but he also worked easily, and his monthly income could reach more than 10,000 yuan, including food and shelter. "At that time, my wife happened to be pregnant, and there were many places to use money. I agreed without much thought."

　　In April 2020, under the leadership of Gan, Xiaoqiu and his party flew from Chengdu to Lancang County, Yunnan Province, then arrived in Menglian Dai Lahu and Wa Autonomous County by bus and stayed in a hotel.

　　"After living for about two days, Gan received a phone call saying that it was arranged there." Then several people checked out and took a van to an unknown small village near the border. "It may have been open for more than an hour at that time. By the time I got there, almost 100 people had gathered at the scene." Xiaoqiu recalled.

　　According to the data, Menglian County is located in the southwest of Yunnan Province, connected with Myanmar in the west and south, with a border of 133.399 kilometers, which is an important gateway to Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar and Thailand.

　　Luo Lei, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Airport Economic Zone Branch of Ziyang Public Security Bureau, was one of the policemen who detected the case. He mentioned that in order to avoid the border inspection, this group chose to walk the mountain road in the middle of the night to steal the border.

　　Xiaoqiu said that five men found Xiaoqiu and others, claiming to be "guides" to northern Myanmar, and organized personnel to start in batches. "When we set off, it was around 11 pm. At that time, we were told that it would only take half an hour to get there. As a result, we went further and further and never arrived."

　　That night, this team of more than 10 people walked in the dense forest in the dark, climbing up and down the hill and crossing the river all the way, which had already exceeded the initial half an hour, which made Xiaoqiu a little scared. "No lights are allowed, strangers are unfamiliar, and once there is an accident or death, no one is in charge."

　　After more than 10 hours of trembling, Xiaoqiu and his party finally arrived in Bangkang, the capital of the Wa State in Myanmar.

　　Someone at the scene is armed with a gun to guard "making big money", which is actually telecom fraud.

　　After arriving at the "work site", Xiaoqiu found that the so-called "high-class hotel" is actually a courtyard similar to a quadrangle. The courtyard wall is very high and covered with barbed wire, and the gate is specially guarded by guns. The work place is a shed built in the courtyard dam. Several tables are pieced together, and the boss will send a special mobile phone to contact the "customers".

　　On the first day of going in, Xiaoqiu regretted that there were 8 people crowded in a small room. The local temperature was hot and the room had no air conditioning. "I can’t sleep well every night, and I can’t leave if I want to."

　　"The main job of that meeting is to find someone to stock." Xiaoqiu said that he mainly used chat software to pull people into stocks, and pulled people in various QQ groups, WeChat groups and forums. After pulling, some people specially docked.

　　The police investigation found that the gang had a clear division of labor. The "boss" distributed mobile phones and social software specially used for fraud to members, and prepared special fraud books.

　　What Xiaoqiu didn’t expect was that the so-called stock trading software was actually very mysterious. Not only the ups and downs could be controlled in the background, but even if money was made, there was no way to withdraw it. "I will call you to continue to charge money, and you can only withdraw money after the funds reach a certain amount. At this time, you can either charge money or continue to stock, but in either case, the funds in your account will be lost in the end."

　　At that time, Xiaoqiu’s salary composition was a basic salary of 5,000 yuan, and every time he completed a fraud, he could get 5%— 15% commission, "the basic salary is only available in the first month, and the commission will be taken away by 10%— 15%。”

　　After two months, due to poor performance, Xiaoqiu and others were "sold" to a gambling company, and their main job was to attract people.

　　"The so-called gambling is actually telecom fraud." Luo Lei, who has many years of experience in handling cases in northern Myanmar, said that gambling companies usually make a web page or APP, and participants can choose to bet. The odds of each type are different. If you guess, you will get the corresponding bonus. "Generally, you will win some money at the beginning. As the bet gets bigger and bigger, the background will artificially control the results."

　　The person involved in leaving to pay the "ransom" has been arrested.

　　After working in a gambling company for more than two months, Xiaoqiu proposed to return to China because his wife was about to give birth. "I told me at the time that I could go back, but I had to lose money."

　　Xiaoqiu said that if you want to get out, you have to pay not only the smuggling fee, air ticket fee and bus fare, but also the food and shelter promised before, and you have to charge separately. One person will cost about 40,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. After hearing such a reply, Xiaoqiu, who was in a foreign country, had no money in his pocket, and there was no way. He found Gan to discuss with the people of the gambling company and finally promised to return to China to deal with the relevant matters before he could be exempted from the compensation fee. "The fare I went back was all for my family to turn around."

　　In April 2021, Xiaoqiu was arrested and brought to justice by the public security organs. On the same day, the principal offender Gan and others were also arrested.

　　After a public hearing by the Yanjiang District People’s Court, Gan was sentenced to 2 years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan for organizing others to cross the border. Xiaoqiu and others were sentenced to criminal detention ranging from 3 months to 6 months and fined from 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan for the crime of crossing the border.

　　The police reminded that the northern part of Myanmar is not a paradise for "gold rush". In recent years, telecommunication network fraud crimes have been on the rise. With the country’s heavy blow to telecommunication fraud, domestic fraud gangs have moved abroad, especially in northern Myanmar. Because criminal gangs need a large number of "workers" who commit fraud, they attract or directly deceive them with "high-paying recruitment" advertisements. Please be vigilant, go out to work through formal and legal channels, and go through legal entry and exit procedures in accordance with the law to guard against being deceived.

CCTV News:In 2022, the number of applicants for the national college entrance examination was 11.93 million, an increase of 1.15 million over last year. In the face of the current situation of epidemic prevention and control, the Ministry of Education, together with the member units of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Meeting of the National Unified Education Examination, guides all localities to make overall plans for epidemic prevention and control and organizing the college entrance examination.

The Ministry of Education, together with the National Health and Wellness Commission, will guide all localities to carefully formulate the pre-plan of the group examination and epidemic prevention plan in light of the local epidemic prevention and control requirements, carefully study the epidemic situation and students’ situation, and make arrangements for the examination sites in different categories to ensure that candidates "take all the exams".

Guide all localities to carefully formulate epidemic prevention operation specifications for the college entrance examination, strengthen and improve epidemic prevention measures for the group entrance examination, carry out epidemic prevention training, prepare enough emergency standby test sites, improve emergency plans, and effectively protect the life safety and health of candidates and examination personnel.

At the same time, in view of the ever-changing epidemic situation, we will guide all localities to comprehensively and timely arrange and master the situation of candidates stranded in other provinces who have signed up for the college entrance examination locally, actively strengthen contact with candidates, and actively assist candidates to return to their places of application for preparation.

The Ministry of Education, together with relevant departments, will guide local governments to study and formulate a series of work measures, and earnestly safeguard the fairness and justice of the college entrance examination by effectively strengthening examination management and severely cracking down on examination fraud and other illegal acts.

　　　　　　 CCTV News:General Motors announced on the 23rd that it will recall about 7 million large pickup trucks and SUVs around the world, which are equipped with potentially dangerous Takada airbags.

　　　　　　 The scope of GM’s recall is full-size pickup trucks and SUVs from 2007 to 2014, including Chevrolet Silverado 1500, 2500 and 3500. Sylvolay is GM’s best-selling car and the second best-selling car in the United States. Chevrolet Big Mac, Chevrolet Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade are also on the recall list.

　　　　　　 Since 2016, GM has requested the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to avoid the recall four times. The company believes that airbags are safe on the road and in testing. However, on the 23rd local time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rejected GM’s request, saying that airbags were still dangerous, and asked GM to recall 5.9 million vehicles in the United States.

　　　　　　 General Motors said it would not oppose this decision and would recall 1.1 million vehicles of the same model sold in other countries except the United States. At the same time, GM said that it firmly believes that the airbags of these vehicles will not pose a threat.

　　　　　　 Since Takada has gone bankrupt, GM will have to bear all the expenses. This will cost GM about $1.2 billion, accounting for about one-third of its net income so far this year.

　　　　　　 According to the report, the safety accident caused by the airbag burst in Takada has caused 27 deaths worldwide, including 18 people in the United States, but none of them involved GM-produced vehicles. At present, 63 million vehicles with related problems have been recalled in the United States, and about 100 million vehicles have been recalled worldwide.

Since the beginning of this year, the global economic growth momentum has been weak. Faced with the unfavorable situation of the complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment, China’s foreign trade has run to a good "acceleration". The data shows that in the first half of the year, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade was 21.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%.

Experts said that in the first half of the year, China’s foreign trade performed brilliantly, the trade scale reached a new high, and the high-quality development achieved remarkable results, showing resilience and vitality.

Foreign trade "report card" exceeds expectations

In the first half of the year, the scale of China’s foreign trade exceeded 21 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period, and the growth rate of import and export accelerated quarter by quarter, with an increase of 7.4% in the second quarter, which was 2.5 and 5.7 percentage points higher than that in the first quarter and the fourth quarter of last year respectively, and the positive momentum of foreign trade was further consolidated.

"In the first half of the year, the foreign trade’ transcripts’ exceeded expectations, and further optimization of export product structure is an important factor." Ni Yueju, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

In the first half of the year, China exported 7.14 trillion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 8.2%, accounting for nearly 60% of China’s total export value. Externally, benefiting from the improvement of international market demand, some major economies have entered the replenishment cycle; Internally, a complete and resilient industrial chain supply chain provides a strong guarantee for the development of China’s electromechanical industry and the promotion of its international market share. In addition, the "new three kinds" continue to lead the growth of foreign trade, and the export momentum of high-end manufacturing products such as ships and marine engineering equipment and rail transit equipment is strong.

Foreign trade performance has a strong correlation with domestic economy. In the first half of the year, China’s economic operation was generally stable, with both quantitative growth and qualitative improvement, which laid a good foundation for foreign trade development. "The scale of foreign trade reached a record high, which also played an important supporting role in economic growth in the first half of the year." Zhu Caihua, a professor at the Institute of International Economics of the University of International Business and Economics, said.

Private enterprises have provoked the "beam" of foreign trade development, and their main position has become more stable. In the first half of the year, the import and export volume of private enterprises increased by 11.2%, accounting for 55% of the total import and export volume, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over the same period last year.

Zhao Tonglu, director of the National Economic Accounting Department of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that China has continued to promote high-level opening to the outside world, accelerated the cultivation of new kinetic energy of foreign trade, steadily increased the scale of foreign trade, and continuously optimized its structure, making positive contributions to promoting sustained economic recovery. In the first half of the year, the contribution rate of net exports of goods and services to economic growth was 13.9%, driving GDP growth by 0.7 percentage points.

Multi-strategy opens up growth space

In mid-July, Xi ‘an Customs and Qingdao Customs jointly launched the supervision mode of "direct sea-rail transportation by land and sea". After the inland goods arrive at Qingdao Port, they can be shipped directly, saving more than 24 hours for goods to be stored in the port and waiting for inspection and release at the port. Through innovative supervision mode, the customs of the two places have further improved transportation efficiency and enhanced the ability of foreign trade enterprises to expand the market.

Zhao Fujun, director and researcher of the Comprehensive Research Office of the Foreign Economic Research Department of the State Council Development Research Center, said that in the first half of the year, China’s imports and exports to countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" increased by 7.2% year-on-year, which was 1.1 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China’s imports and exports; Imports and exports to ASEAN increased by 10.5%, which was also much higher than the overall growth rate of China’s exports. The cumulative number of trains in China and Europe exceeded 10,000 19 days earlier than the previous year, and the cumulative volume of goods sent increased by 11%, which played a positive role in maintaining the stability and smoothness of the international industrial chain supply chain.

With the steady progress of the high-quality development of the "Belt and Road", the economic and trade cooperation between China and the countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" has continued to deepen. In the first half of the year, Fujian Province exported 64.82 billion yuan of cross-border e-commerce to countries that jointly built the Belt and Road Initiative, up 142.2% year-on-year, accounting for 58.6% of the total value of cross-border e-commerce exports in Fujian Province in the same period. Guangxi’s import and export to ASEAN, the largest trading partner, increased by 26.7% year-on-year, and its import and export ratio to ASEAN increased significantly, and its import and export to emerging markets increased rapidly.

In recent years, China’s foreign trade enterprises actively respond to changes in international demand, strive to cultivate new competitive advantages, and show strong resilience. However, due to the impact of the US dollar interest rate hike, weak export earnings and other factors, foreign exchange reserves in Africa and Latin America are generally insufficient, and it is difficult for Chinese foreign trade enterprises to repay their money on time after exporting to these regions. Zhao Fujun believes that in the future, BRICS expansion and "BRIC+"cooperation will provide more development opportunities for countries in the south of the world and will enhance their competitiveness in the global economy.

Foreign trade is expected to maintain steady growth.

In the second half of the year, the situation facing China’s foreign trade is still grim, but there are also many favorable factors. Experts believe that China’s foreign trade can still maintain a steady growth trend.

Under the background of increasing global trade protectionism, China’s trade will face some new situations in the second half of the year: unbalanced global economic recovery may lead to unstable demand; Geopolitical conflicts are becoming increasingly tense, which may produce unexpected situations to block the recovery process of international trade; Europe and the United States joined forces to suppress China’s new energy vehicles through high tariffs, which made the "new three" exports face new challenges.

Zhu Caihua believes that in the face of challenges, we should continue to accelerate the construction of a unified national market and continue to expand the scale advantage of the domestic market. Promote technological innovation and industrial transformation and upgrading, and constantly consolidate trade competitive advantages. Promote the transformation from "trade-oriented going to sea" to "ecological going to sea", that is, promote the transformation of some goods trade into investment and other cooperation modes, thus promoting the transformation of goods trade advantages into service trade and digital trade advantages. In addition, we should properly deal with trade barriers and trade frictions and accelerate the expansion of emerging markets.

We should also see that China’s foreign trade growth has many favorable factors. Ni Yueju said that China’s foreign trade has strong resilience, and a complete industrial chain and a series of foreign trade policies have also given strong support. It is expected that China’s foreign trade will maintain a steady growth trend in the second half of this year without sudden major international events.

Zhao Fujun said that the global trade situation this year is slightly better than last year. According to the report of the World Trade Organization, the global trade volume of goods decreased by 1.2% in 2023, and it is expected to increase by 2.6% in 2024. In addition, China’s domestic economic operation is generally stable, the RCEP tariff concession policy continues to release dividends, and the "One Belt, One Road" initiative is deepening, which is conducive to the steady development of China’s foreign trade. (Reporter Feng Qiyu)