Cambodia’s Hun Sen Receives Support Pledges on China Visit – The Diplomat

China Energy | Diplomacy | East Asia | Southeast Asia

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen obtained a number of assurances of Chinese language financial and political help throughout a gathering Friday in Beijing with Chinese language President Xi Jinping.

“(China) firmly helps Cambodia in safeguarding nationwide sovereignty and safety, firmly helps Cambodia in steadily advancing main home political agendas and financial and social growth, and resolutely opposes exterior forces interfering in Cambodia’s inner affairs,” Xi was quoted as telling Hun Sen by China’s official Xinhua Information Company.

China will even encourage extra Chinese language enterprises to put money into Cambodia, assist in the development of the Sihanoukville financial zone in Cambodia’s southwest on the Gulf of Thailand, and help constructing transportation infrastructure, Xi mentioned.

Hun Sen was quoted as thanking China for offering COVID-19 vaccines and mentioned Cambodia “firmly helps China in safeguarding nationwide sovereignty, safety, and growth pursuits” and “firmly opposes any exterior forces interfering in China’s inner affairs on points associated to Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.”

Cambodia is a key Chinese language diplomatic accomplice, serving to dampen criticism of Beijing throughout the 10-member Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations, a number of of whose members are engaged in territorial disputes with China within the South China Sea.

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The assembly on the Diaoyutai State Visitor Home comes in the course of Hun Sen’s three-day go to. He was to fulfill later with outgoing Premier Li Keqiang, after which the leaders had been to supervise the signing of a raft of agreements.

Hun Sen took energy in 1998 and with robust Chinese language backing has eradicated all democratic threats to his rule, muzzling the press and locking up or exiling opponents and critics.

In return, China has gained an outsized function in Cambodian politics and the financial system, as seen within the quite a few Chinese language-funded initiatives, motels and casinos dotting the panorama.

China’s state banks have additionally financed airports, roads and different infrastructure constructed with Chinese language loans.

Greater than 40 % of Cambodia’s $10 billion in international debt is owed to China, though Cambodia has not requested Beijing to restructure that burden, not like different international locations corresponding to Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Ethiopia, which have taken out large Chinese language loans.

Regardless of its small measurement, Cambodia has develop into an necessary accomplice for China, which was the highest backer of the communist Khmer Rouge regime within the Nineteen Seventies whose radical insurance policies are blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million individuals.

In June, China and Cambodia broke floor on a naval port growth venture that has raised issues from the U.S. and others that it may give Beijing a strategically necessary army outpost on the Gulf of Thailand.

Hun Sen in 2019 reportedly granted China the fitting to arrange a army base on the Ream Naval Base. He has lengthy denied that, saying Cambodia’s Structure prohibits international army services.