Cambodia's Siding Story--Between China and the U.S.?

Letter to Editor, Phnom Penh Post Newspaper, 27 June 2012

Dear Editor,

Is Cambodia leaning toward China or the U.S.? For Cambodia’s context, this question was once buried with the end of Khmer Rouge regime. To simplify history, in 1960s, Cambodia was leaning toward China. In 1970s, Cambodia was leaning toward the U.S. Then, the next three decades, Cambodia plunged into civil war with millions suffered. That was the time the siding story disappeared.

To our anxiety, currently, this story seems to emerge again. With China’s rise through its economic prowess and its sizeable military spending on the one side, and the so-called “America’s Pacific Century” on the other side, the struggle for influence is heating up between the two powers.

Even though “neutrality and non-alignment ” is stipulated in Cambodia’s constitution, from the outside world, it is perceived differently providing the current scale of its bilateral relations with China vis-à-vis with the U.S.

Politically, as Cambodia is chairing ASEAN, although hilarious as it may be, rumor has it that “Cambodia forwards every document to China before meeting with ASEAN”. It is hard to believe that there are people who take this worst joke seriously when “Consensus” and “ASEAN-centrality” is core ASEAN’s trademark.

Economically, some people expressed serious concern about the influence of “Chinese capital” in Cambodia. But how many countries in the world that do not want Chinese capital amid Euro crisis and U.S.’ economic slowdown? In early June, Japan even started direct trading between Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. In market economy, as long as it does not affect national security interest, it would be hard to imagine any country restrict the number of their economic partners.

This shows how alarming the perception from the outside world. However, for Cambodia, we are not shaken because the 30 years dark history is still fresh. Experiences tell us that at time of civil war and at time of emergency, the siding story disappeared. Now, Cambodia is wishing that the siding story also disappears in time of peace.