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Opinion | Cambodians don’t want to be a chess piece in the US-China rivalry
US tariffs are delaying progress on working conditions while border tensions with Thailand jeopardise the informal economy
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For Cambodians who have gone for the better part of three decades without war, peace is preferred. But for many in the country, backing down isn’t an option either. That rings true for the challenges posed by the US-China rivalry, the Trump administration and the recent border skirmish with Thailand that left a Cambodian soldier dead in contested territory.
Four days after the skirmish, I travelled by bus from Thailand to Cambodia. By then, both governments had agreed to resolve their border dispute peacefully; Cambodia has since taken the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
This isn’t the ICJ’s first involvement with the disputed area, which has four Hindu temples. In 2013, the court clarified a 1962 ruling in favour of Cambodia – affirming its ownership of one of the temples, Preah Vihear – but the dispute dates back further.
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After conquering Cambodia in the 19th century, imperial France signed a 1904 treaty with the kingdom of Siam delineating their border. But the map produced in 1907 by French surveyors was seen as deviating from the agreement and later contested by Thailand.
Over a century later, after gunshots rang out from the border area known as the Emerald Triangle, there is much speculation over what the latest border clash means in the context of US-China competition in the region.
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“We find ourselves in the position of a sort of a hostage scenario that we’re caught up in between dependencies on two contending powers,” said Yang Sophorn, president of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions.
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