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Why Hun Sen needs China now more than ever
Why Hun Sen needs China now more than ever
Pending US and EU sanctions threaten to sink Cambodia’s economy. Will China come to the rescue?
Op-Ed: Asia Time
By DAVID HUTT, PHNOM PENH
In multiple and mounting ways, from aid to trade to diplomatic protection, China keeps its geopolitical ally Cambodia afloat. That patron-client relationship was on full display late last month when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen made a hat-in-hand four-day state visit to Beijing.
The leader came away with what he sought: More money, more promises and more comradely assurances. Beijing reportedly pledged to provide Cambodia with US$588 million in aid over the next three years, to import 400,000 tons of rice, increase bilateral trade from $5.7 billion last year to $10 billion in 2023, and broadly more investment.
“At present, China-Cambodia relations are facing new development opportunities,” China state-media outlet Xinhua quoted President Xi Jinping as saying after his meeting with Hun Sen last week. Hun Sen, for his part, wrote in a post-visit Facebook post that Xi “praised [China’s] special cooperation with Cambodia and vowed to make the relationship even stronger” and that its future development assistance for that country will be “twice more solid.”
China’s patronage is arguably more important now than ever, as the United States (US) moves to sanction Hun Sen’s regime and the European Union (EU) looks to withdraw the country from its duty-free Everything But Arms (EBA) trade scheme. Both are punitive responses to Cambodia’s recent democratic retreat, exemplified by the dissolution of country’s main opposition party in November 2017, a move that drove many of its members into exile.
Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) thus won all the seats in the National Assembly at last July’s general election, a result many Western observers and governments saw as rigged and illegitimate. The CPP has claimed that any Western criticism of its rule is an assault on the country’s sovereignty and insult to its independence, claims the long-ruling party has played up to nationalistic effect.
China, it seems, is now backing that anti-Western narrative. Its new ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian, recently asserted that Western nations want to “attack the cooperation between Cambodia and China.” Geopolitical shifts partly explain why Beijing has appeared to indulge the Cambodian government’s worst anti-democratic instincts and move to a de facto one-party state after years of Western-favored multi-party democracy.
Elections last year in Pakistan, Maldives and Malaysia all saw skeptics of China’s $1 trillion infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) rise to democratic power. Other regional countries have also started to air misgivings or stalled on BRI-related projects. While some reports of BRI downsides and debt traps have been exaggerated, there is a rising regional backlash against Chinese investments that are perceived to erode nations’ sovereignty and finances.
Xi stressed at a high-level symposium to mark the BRI’s fifth anniversary held in Beijing last August that its projects aim to “improve the global governance system” and build a world “community of shared destiny.” It’s a message China aims in particular for neighboring Southeast Asia, where big BRI plans for connecting infrastructure to promote and facilitate more regional trade are on the drawing board.
Read More …Is Cambodia’s Foreign Policy Heading in the Right Direction?
Is Cambodia’s Foreign Policy Heading in the Right Direction?
Cambodia needs to recalibrate its relationships with the US and EU, or risk becoming overly reliant on China.
Op-Ed: The Diplomat
By Kimkong Heng, February 08, 2019
Cambodia’s foreign policy has seen remarkable improvements after 1993 when the country held its UN-organized national election. The Cambodian government’s efforts to integrate Cambodia into the region and the world have resulted in Cambodia’s membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1999 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2004. The Kingdom has overall had good relations with its neighbors and other countries in Southeast Asia and beyond.
However, as a small state Cambodia has limited strategic space to maneuver and its foreign policy dynamics face considerable challenges. The country is seen to lean toward China, its closest ally and its largest economic and military benefactor, at the expense of good relations with other countries. Cambodia’s close embrace of China has become more evident since 2012. From blocking ASEAN joint statements to supporting Beijing’s One China policy, Cambodia continues to demonstrate its willingness to embrace China. In turn, China has reciprocated through increasing “no strings attached” aid and loans to Cambodia.
Both countries upgraded their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2010, and as of now China is Cambodia’s largest foreign direct investor. The trade volume between the two countries was valued at $5.8 billion in 2017, by which time China had given approximately $4.2 billion to Cambodia in the form of aid and soft loans.
While Cambodia is seen to enjoy its reciprocal relationship with the world’s second largest economy, its relations with the West look set to deteriorate.
Following the dissolution of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2017 and the controversial national election in 2018, which saw the ruling party sweep all seats in the National Assembly, Cambodia’s ties with the United States reached a new low. The United States has imposed visa sanctions on high-ranking Cambodian government officials, withdrawn aid commitments, and further imposed financial sanctions, including asset freezes on the commander of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit. The Cambodian ruling elites have condemned these sanctions and have repeatedly made reference to the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, rhetoric Hun Sen’s government has often used to criticize the US.
Cambodia’s ties with the European Union now also face challenges. The EU has begun the internal process to withdraw its Everything But Arms (EBA) trade preferences from Cambodia, a move the European bloc initiated in response to the Cambodia government’s perceived lack of commitment to improve its human, labor, and political rights situation. In return, Cambodia issued a communiqué calling the EU trade threat an extreme injustice. The EU has been also accused of using double standards in its treatment of Cambodia. Further, Prime Minister Hun Sen has recently warned that he would put an end to the opposition party if the EU withdraws the EBA from Cambodia.
Cambodia’s foreign policy toward the United States and the EU, analyzed in terms of recent developments, appears not to be heading in the right direction. It is not wise for Cambodia, as a small developing country, to fight against or alienate itself from the world’s largest economy and the world’s largest trading bloc. Although the Cambodian government may have strong support from China, its current approach toward the United States and the EU will not be helpful in the long run. It is certainly better to have friends on both sides of the world, rather than adopt a one-sided orientation toward friendship and foreign policy.
Hun Sen and his ruling elites’ powerful narratives of war, peace, development, poverty reduction, independence, and sovereignty are well developed and seem to be well received by many Cambodians who have first- or even second-hand experience of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. Most Cambodians, if not all, would not like to experience or hear about war or social instability again at all. However, they also expect more from their country and leaders. In addition to peace and stability, they have a strong desire for better opportunities, freedom, and human rights. They want to see many social issues being addressed. While they are hopeful for the future of Cambodia, they may also be worried about a possible worst-case scenario where their country may fall victim to a new cold war in Southeast Asia. Specifically, it is conceivable that Cambodia may become an object of strategies used by China and the United States in their competition for dominance in the international system and in Southeast Asia in particular.
Cambodia’s close alignment with China, although important for Cambodia’s economic development and the ruling elites’ legitimacy, does not seem to bring about sustainable and inclusive development for all. Chinese investment, aid, and loans are generally directed at the government and the Cambodian elites. Unlike the Chinese way, the Western approach to aid, loans, and investment projects is usually channelled through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and aimed at benefiting ordinary Cambodians. Although the number and amount of aid and development projects from the West are few, when compared with a large and increasing number of the Chinese investment projects, they are usually seen to promote accountability, sustainability, and inclusiveness. Chinese investment projects, however, tend to lack transparency and accountability, leading to many environmental and social issues in Cambodia. Thus, the impact of China’s development projects on the sustainable development of Cambodia is still an open question.
Read More …China-Cambodia Military Fears in the Headlines with New US Intelligence Report
China-Cambodia Military Fears in the Headlines with New US Intelligence Report
A closer look at recent headlines about Beijing’s growing military presence in the Southeast Asian state and their wider significance.
Op-Ed: The Diplomat
By Prashanth Parameswara February 05, 2019
Last week, the suggestion that Cambodia could move towards changing its constitution to facilitate growing Chinese military presence in the country led to another series of headlines about Beijing’s rising influence in the Southeast Asian state. While such worries are far from new, their continued articulation by U.S. officials reinforces the extent of the concern around such developments as well as the wider trends that they represent within the Indo-Pacific.
As I have noted previously in these pages, while the idea of a deepening Chinese military presence in Cambodia under Prime Minister Hun Sen is far from new, there has been increased attention to this as both sides have been stepping up their defense ties and amid wider concerns including rising Chinese economic and security presence in Southeast Asia and setbacks to democracy in the region.
A case in point was late last year where we saw the latest round of public scrutiny on the notion of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia tied to a controversial, ongoing port project, with U.S. officials directly raising the issue with Cambodia. As I noted in an evaluation of these concerns, even though specifics may remain unclear for now in the public domain, these fears are not entirely unfounded given some of the developments we have already seen in recent years.
Last week, the fears of China’s growing military presence surfaced again following the release of this year’s iteration of the Worldwide Treat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a collective report produced by 17 separate U.S. agencies. Several media outlets picked up on the fact that in his statement for the record for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dated January 29, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats had mentioned that Cambodia’s slide toward autocracy “opens the way for a constitutional amendment that could lead to a Chinese military presence in the country.”
This then led to several headlines in Cambodia and internationally about those comments. Unsurprisingly, the Cambodian government reacted rather defensively as well, with the defense ministry rejecting the need for it to amend its constitution and even welcoming the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to seek the truth behind these issues.
Read More …Cambodia: A Country for Rent
Cambodia: A Country for Rent
Richard Bernstein FEBRUARY 21, 2019 ISSUE
Not that it should have been a surprise, but China was the only major country that declined to join the international criticism of Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, as he ensured that he would run effectively unopposed in the parliamentary elections on July 29, 2018, turning them into a sham and largely dismantling what remained of Cambodia’s democratic structures. Among Hun Sen’s actions was the arrest and imprisonment on transparently ridiculous charges of Kem Sokha, the leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), the only opposition party capable of challenging his rule. That occurred just after midnight on September 3, 2017, when some one hundred armed police descended on Kem’s Phnom Penh home and hauled him off to a rural prison near the Vietnamese border, where he remained for a year before being released on bail to await trial. With the only other Cambodian opposition figure of national stature, Sam Rainsy, living in enforced exile, Hun Sen had no credible challenger in the elections. His party won all 125 seats in the National Assembly.
There were other acts of brazen and undisguised repression that provoked the disapproval of much of the world apart from China. Cambodia’s main English-language newspaper, The Cambodian Daily, which had done good professional reporting on the country for twenty-four years, training a generation of Cambodian journalists in the process, was closed down on dubious charges of tax evasion. NGOs, including the National Democratic Institute, which is affiliated with the Democratic Party in the US, were expelled from the country. Most important, perhaps, Hun Sen’s compliant Supreme Court, two months after Kem’s arrest, dissolved the CNRP and banned 118 of its senior figures from politics for five years.
The purpose of this repression is obvious. Kem and his party had performed well in parliamentary elections six years ago despite the ruling party’s efforts to manipulate them, including the occasional unsolved murder and attacks on opposition rallies. In 2017 the CNRP received 44 percent of the vote in local elections, compared to 49 percent for Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party. Given the widespread disaffection with Hun Sen and his corrupt cohort, especially among younger voters, many Cambodian and foreign observers believed that if the July 29 vote had been free and fair, Kem might well have won, thereby unseating Hun Sen after thirty-three years in power.
Read More …