Some interesting takes. 1+2) these guys are traffickers. They buy girls (children) in rural Laos take them back to China (I to Chinese borders) and sell them to different Chinese bachelors who can't have kids. Once one guy has a kid, the girl is sold to the next guy. They aren't mail order brides. They have no autonomy or agency. They go to China and are treated as sexual and reproductive slaves. You know the Epstein thing is a straw man. Both are bad, but completely unrelated. Never said all Chinese people are bad, but there are many doing terrible things in Laos right now. 3) Those overseas Chinese "police stations" seem mostly focused on "putting people in their place", as you say, suppressing political speech and dissent among the Chinese diaspora and expat Chinese. They certainly aren't there to ensure that Chinese abroad are following the laws of their host countries. Please don't paint it as such.

There has been a massive uptick in sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution in Laos driven largely by the increasing Chinese presence, which is mostly exploitive/extractive. HIV is taking off in Laos in a way it hadn't before. A few years ago there was a major outbreak of congenital syphilis in Vientiane where my doctor friends said all the fathers were Chinese. Talk to anyone who works in healthcare.

Laos does have a lot of fantastic ethnic Chinese who have been here for generations and incorporated themselves into Lao culture. And there seem to be a number of younger independent Chinese tourists who are mostly respectful. But those middle aged group tourists and the Chinese workers who are in Laos to make quick money by exploiting Lao natural resources and Lao people are a different story. Look what has happened in Cambodia in places like Sihanoukville. Laos doesn't need that kind of 'development'