The top security officials respectively of China and Vietnam have on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bilateral cooperation in combatting “cross-border gambling” activities, reported China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.
The media outlet said the agreement was signed during a ministerial-level meeting on crime prevention (pictured), held in Beijing and co-hosted by China’s Minister of Public Security, Wang Xiaohong, and his Vietnam counterpart, General To Lam.
The Xinhua report did not detail the content of the MoU. It also did not mention how the two countries would cooperate to curb cross-border gambling activities.
The report only cited Minister Wang as saying that the framework regarding “strategic” cooperation between China and Vietnam on a number of areas had been previously laid out by China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, and Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong.
The latter was a reference to a meeting held in October last year, during which both leaders agreed to promote cooperation on a number of law enforcement topics, including the tackling of “cross-border gambling”.
In a press release following Wednesday’s meeting, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security mentioned both sides had pledged to strengthen border patrols, while coordinating “effective” law enforcement actions against various types of transnational criminality, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, and telecommunications and Internet frauds.