BANGKOK – The leaders of Thailand and Malaysia agreed on Friday to increase intelligence sharing on security and to move forward in possibly building a border wall to combat transnational terrorism and smuggling.

People-trafficking and the smuggling of contraband, including drugs and petrol, have flourished along the Thai-Malay border for years until a crackdown by Thai officials on human traffickers caused some of the routes to shut down last year.

Analysts say that separatist insurgents operating in Thailand’s deep south use Malaysia as a base to launch and plan their attacks.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters that security remained “a very important matter” for both countries and that there was an agreement to increase intelligence gathering and sharing to apprehend cross-border terrorism.

“We both face security issues including the fight against terrorism, human trafficking and illegal smuggling, that is why we need to address these issues seriously,” said Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

The world’s most significant walls

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AFP

Najib said that both sides had discussed the construction and extension of a border wall with details to be worked out. “The matter is under consideration but we need to determine the physical dimensions of the wall or fence as well as the sharing of the costs,” he said.

Najib’s visit follows three deadly bomb attacks in southern Thailand over the past month, including a wave of bombings in tourist towns in August which Thai police have linked to Muslim separatists.

Analysts say the attacks were carried out by a separatist insurgent group known as Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) after having been left out of peace talks between the Thai government and a separate separatist umbrella group in Malaysia.

Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were once part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until they were annexed by Thailand in 1909.

Since 2004, Muslim separatists operating in the area have waged a bloody insurgency which has claimed more than 6,500 lives, according to the Deep South Watch which monitors the conflict.

See also: Britain to start building anti-migrant wall in Calais

Mass graves of suspected migrants found in Malaysia

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The Star/ANN, Reuters, AFP

BEIJING – Chinese state media on Friday marked the 40th anniversary of the death of the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, with articles praising him, but President Xi Jinping visited a school and did not mention the day.

Mao, who died in 1976, remains a divisive figure.

His image adorns banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors a day to Beijing.

While the ruling Communist Party has acknowledged Mao made mistakes, there has yet to be an official accounting for the chaos of the Cultural Revolution when Mao declared class war, or the millions of deaths from starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward, a failed attempt at rapid industrialisation.

The Hunan Daily, the main party paper in Mao’s home province in the south of China, carried a small article on its front page proclaiming “Chairman Mao, the people cherish your memory”, but banished to its fifth page a longer article about him.

China remembers Chairman Mao, 40 years after death

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AFP

The party’s official People’s Daily carried several pictures of him on its Weibo microblog along with a collection of some of his most well-known quotes and asked people to name their favourite.

However it disabled the comments section.

Xi, who doubles as party and military chief, made no mention of Mao in his main activity for the day as reported by state media, going to a Beijing school ahead of China’s Teachers Day, which falls on Saturday.

While there he “underscored the importance of better basic education”, according to Xinhua news agency, and watched students playing football, Xi’s favourite sport.

Xi suffered personally during the Cultural Revolution when his father was imprisoned. Xi was sent to the countryside to live with peasants, like millions of other urban Chinese youth.

Mao has become a potent symbol for leftists within and without the party who feel three decades of market-based reform have gone too far, creating social inequalities like poverty and graft.

In lauding Mao, they sometimes seek to put pressure on the current leadership and its market-oriented policies.

A day earlier, a small group of Mao fans attended the opening of a calligraphy and art exhibition about him in Beijing. “Chinese people, the broad masses of the Chinese people, in their hearts, have never forgotten Mao Zedong. They will remember him forever. And they still promote his principles,”artist Yao Weidong told Reuters. “So if there are corrupt officials, we use Mao Zedong Thought to defeat them. We all remember very clearly. Most of us have not forgotten Chairman Mao.”

The cult of Mao

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Reuters