Last summer, a 15-year-old teenager from Guigang, Guangxi, named Xiaotian, went missing after going out to play. It was confirmed that he had crossed the border to Myanmar, and it has been nearly 9 months since then. During this time, he has only spoken with his mother three times and was accompanied by guards.
According to a report from the Front Page News on April 30, Xiaotian’s family resides in a rural area of Guigang, Guangxi, and their livelihood depends on sugarcane cultivation. On August 3, 2025, Xiaotian’s father went out for farm work while Xiaotian stayed home and prepared lunch. He messaged his father on WeChat saying he was “going out to play and will be back soon,” but then went missing.
At that time, Xiaotian’s mother, Ms. Meng, was working in Shenzhen and had planned to go back to their hometown with her son to enroll him in school by the end of August. Upon learning about her son’s disappearance, Ms. Meng immediately returned home and reported to the local police station on August 5, 2025. The local police initiated a case on August 21. Later, they received information from the police that Xiaotian had crossed the border from Yunnan to Myanmar.
As of today, Xiaotian has been trapped in Myanmar for nearly 9 months. During this period, Ms. Meng has only had three brief video calls with her son.
The first call was 10 days after he left home, where Xiaotian mentioned that he had somehow ended up in Myanmar without knowing how; the second call was just before Chinese New Year this year, saying that someone bought him a piece of clothing; and the most recent call was in March this year, where he appeared listless, with guards standing beside him. Since then, Ms. Meng has tried several times to contact her son but received no response.
It is worth noting that in recent years, cybercriminals involved in telecommunication scams have targeted minors and students.
On April 10, a 19-year-old female college student from Guangdong was lured to a telecommunication fraud area in Myanmar after being “invited” by a friend to attend the Songkran Festival in Thailand. The family paid a ransom of about 200,000 RMB as agreed, but the female student remains trapped in Myanmar and has not returned home to this day.
In June 2025, an 18-year-old high school student named Hu Yixiao from Lujiang County, Hefei City, Anhui Province, was deceived into a telecommunication fraud area in Myanmar due to believing in a “high-paying part-time job.” After the family exposed the situation online, Hu Yixiao was rescued and returned home after 51 days.