Cambodia-China Community with a Shared Future from the Security Perspective

Letter to Editor, Freshnews, 19 June 2024 (Link)

Cambodia and China always extend mutual support when it comes to the issues of core interests. For them, this is the real essence of a Cambodia-China Community with a Shared Future.

In a turbulent international environment, Cambodia and China attach great importance to the sanctity of their respective core national interests, independence, sovereignty and self-determination on the path of development.

For instance, The Chinese side always firmly supports the Cambodian people's choice of a development path suited to Cambodia's national conditions, Cambodia's efforts to safeguard its independence, sovereignty, security and development interests, and the steady advancement of Cambodia's important national political agenda, while expressing its firm opposition to any foreign interference in the internal affairs of Cambodia.

The Cambodian side always firmly adheres to the One-China policy. Cambodia regards the government of the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate government representing the whole of China, opposes any attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs by supporting separatist activities, and resolutely supports all China's efforts to achieve national reunification.

Mutual assistance in protecting core national interests, independence, sovereignty and self-determination can be regarded as the overriding principle of Cambodia-China relations. Based on this primordial principle, the two countries are developing multifaceted security cooperation.

Although there are many types of securities, such as economic securities, etc., this article will look at two aspects of bilateral cooperation, namely military-to-military cooperation and Covid-19 cooperation. Next, it will address security cooperation at the regional and global levels.

Military Cooperation

For Cambodia, bilateral military cooperation with China is one of the most dynamic and comprehensive relations that Cambodia has. It defines the robustness of Cambodia-China security cooperation.

China was the only country with which Cambodia conducted military exercises during and immediately after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 2016, Cambodia and China have held the Golden Dragon military exercise five times. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 epidemic, Cambodia was the first and only foreign country with which China conducted a military exercise. The joint naval exercise before the official start of the Golden Dragon-2023 joint drills marked a high level of comprehensive military exchange and cooperation between China and Cambodia.

Indeed, military cooperation between Cambodia and China goes beyond frequent military exercises. China's supplies of military equipment, training and scholarships to Cambodia often make headlines regarding the breadth and depth of security cooperation between Cambodia and China.

Of note, on 8 June 2022 Cambodia broke ground on the construction of upgrades to the country’s naval capacity through the modernisation of Ream Naval Base. The groundbreaking ceremony kicked off the construction project to rehabilitate the dry dock, pier and slipway along with the construction of a vessel maintenance workshop. The port at Ream Naval Base is currently too shallow at just 7m in depth, but after its rehabilitation it will be able to dock medium-sized vessels.

Despite various accusations about a possible presence of Chinese troops on Cambodian soil, Cambodia has made it known that its Constitution does not authorize foreign military bases or a foreign military presence on Cambodian soil. Cambodia also explained the need to renovate the base, which only serves to strengthen the country's naval capabilities so that Cambodia can protect its maritime integrity and combat crime on the high seas.

Covid-19 Cooperation

Time to accept Cambodia as it is

Khmer Times, Opinion, 23 January 2023 (Link)

In his memoir, Lee Kuan Yew remarked that Cambodia’s “present leaders,” meaning Hun Sen, “are the product of bitter, relentless struggles in which opponents were either eliminated or neutralized. They are utterly merciless and ruthless, without humane feelings.”

This is the general view of foreign observers over Cambodian leaders. But was it a correct view about Cambodia and Cambodian leaders?

Back then, Singapore was not alone in despising Cambodian leaders whom they treated as Vietnam’s puppet. Many countries put sanction on Cambodia and the remaining few million Cambodian survivors. Many countries provided legitimacy and weapons to, and conducted trade with the Khmer Rouge. The anti-Vietnam and anti-communism sentiment had justified those countries’ being as Khmer Rouge sympathizers.

For now, we have the benefit of re-evaluating history in hindsight.

For now, we could understand that being a Khmer Rouge sympathizer was a mistake against the surviving Cambodian people.

This was the past mistake of foreign observers, and they should learn from that mistake by trying to understand what Cambodian leaders think. They have to remove their own stubborn and rigid ideological and geopolitical frames if they want to understand better about Cambodian leaders.

Was Hun Sen really  Vietnam’s puppet? Was Hun Sen a communist dictator?

By reviewing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s five-hour testimony in the National Assembly on the border issues between Cambodia and Vietnam on 9 August 2012, and his 64-page written statement dated 8 September 2015, one would have wondered why would Vietnam spend more than 40 years to negotiate border issues with its puppet?

If one can read Prime Minister Hun Sen’s book entitled, “10 Years of Cambodia’s March: 1979-1989”, one can re-evaluate what was the situation and challenges that Cambodian leaders were facing, and evaluate their leadership’s approaches and perspectives.

From the book, one can observe that Hun Sen is not an ideologue. He is a pragmatist that cares the most for the nation’s survival and people’s livelihood. He adopted market economy and partial privatization well before Vietnam did. He initiated peace negotiation with the then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk despite internal opposition within his party. He invited the United Nations to broker Cambodian peace and to station in Cambodia despite the fear of losing sovereignty and foreign domination. He was not a dictator as he was trying to mobilize consensus and support from within his party since the beginning. His approach is still the same. He never made a decision in silo, with a complete lack of information or consultation.

All of these historical decisions defined the quality and capability of Cambodian leaders, and those surrounding them.

How to better understand Cambodia

Khmer Times, Opinion, 25 January 2023 (Link)

There are two ways to better understand a country and its people.

One way is to give up all prejudice and try to approach local people with naked eyes.

Another is to seek to understand the original thoughts, cultures and identities of local people.

Now let us discuss about the first way, the importance of seeing local people with naked eyes without predetermined frames of prejudice.

The approach towards Cambodia and Cambodian people should be in a learning attitude, trying to understand without prejudice and predetermined judgment.

For example, for Cambodian people, when asked what they think about Japanese, they often can accept Japanese as they are, not as the imperialist invaders based on historical and cultural prejudice even if Cambodian people like to watch Khmer-dubbed Chinese movies, Korean movies and American movies that portray Japanese as devil imperialists.

They just accept Japanese people as Japanese, as friends, as guests, as pure human being without any prejudgment.

Cambodian people know that there are also some rude and arrogant American, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. But they still approach those foreigners without discrimination.

Cambodian people rarely view Westerners in the historical frames, such as the past colonists, the past bombers over our grandparents, the past “sanctioners” over our parents, or as the past Khmer Rouge sympathizers.

Generally, we don’t have vengeful feeling against foreigners.

Such kind of approach by Cambodian people should be reciprocated by foreigners.

Now let us discuss about the second way, the importance of digging deeper by getting to know the original thoughts and ways of life of local people.