As anti-US feeling grows in Cambodia, China cashes in
If it’s business as usual with Washington, as Phnom Penh’s Ministry of Commerce claims, what’s behind Hun Sen’s increasingly fevered rhetoric?
Chinese businesses are quietly expanding their footprint in Cambodia as relations between the Southeast Asian nation and Washington worsen and the din of anti-American sentiment grows louder.
The United States and Cambodia have never been on the best of terms, with the small country’s long-time ruler Hun Sen rarely missing an opportunity to take potshots at the Western superpower.
In recent weeks, the prime minister has unleashed a flood of conspiracy theories centred around the US – often perpetuated by state mouthpiece Fresh News – that claim Washington is promoting insurrection and wants to topple the government led by Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
These allegations reached fever pitch when opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested in early September on charges of treason for what the government says is a US-backed plan to overthrow the government.
In late August, the US imposed visa restrictions on senior foreign ministry officials after Cambodia suspended a controversial 2002 agreement to receive from the US Cambodian deportees who had been convicted of felonies. In response, Hun Sen said Cambodia would no longer help find the remains of American soldiers who had died in Cambodia during the Vietnam war. He also lambasted the US for its role in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge regime and invited the ambassador to inspect two chemical bombs, which were found in the countryside, as a reminder of America’s past actions.