US approaches Cambodia’s new prime minister to embrace China

Cambodia’s first leadership change in nearly four decades gives the United States an opportunity to recalibrate its relationship with Phnom Penh, analysts and experts told VOA’s Khmer service after a U.S. diplomat recently visited Cambodia.

However, they said in recent interviews that Cambodia’s deviation from democratic institutions and suggestions that China is establishing an exclusive military presence at Cambodia’s main naval base continue to pose significant obstacles to warming relations between the two countries.

Sebastian Strangio, author of “Hun Sen’s Cambodia,” said even before former Prime Minister Hun Sen handed control to his son, Prime Minister Hun Mane, in August, some in U.S. foreign policy circles Voices are questioning the effectiveness of Washington’s current Cambodia policy – which ended Cambodia’s rule. My father has been in office for 38 years.

“People who follow Southeast Asia have been discussing that since the early 1990s, US policy towards Cambodia has been imbued with a moralistic tone but failed to achieve its goals while also providing space for China to intervene. Hun Sen’s benefactor and patron , there needs to be some kind of change in focus,” he said in an interview with VOA Khmer on March 28.

Strangio describes the tension between Hun Sen’s leading critics in Congress, who want to put human rights and democracy at the forefront of Cambodia policy, and more pragmatic figures in the State Department, who are willing to sacrifice principles in exchange for more pragmatic figures in Phnom Penh. Big influence.

Strangio said that the rise of Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, “provides an opportunity for the country to take a new approach and an opportunity for those who advocate for the new approach to be more heard.”

This shift was on full display after the July election. The United States initially froze $18 million in foreign aid to Cambodia in protest of the election, citing a “pattern of threats and harassment” against opposition politicians, journalists and civil society ahead of the vote.

Two months later, after Hun Mane was sworn in, Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met with the new prime minister in New York and informed him that the United States would unfreeze the funds.

Analysts said Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink’s visit to Phnom Penh in late February showed the delicate balance the United States is seeking, underscoring the priorities it has set since helping mediate Cambodia 30 years ago. But it has not completely abandoned its established priorities.

The U.S. envoy told an online press conference on March 7 that he raised “areas of disagreement related to issues such as human rights, human trafficking, and creating space for a free and independent media,” while also reaffirming the United States’ commitment to “more A prosperous, democratic and independent nation.”

Kritenbrink praised Cambodia at the United Nations for cooperating with sanctions on North Korea and has consistently condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Astrid Nolen-Nielsen, a senior lecturer at the Center for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Sweden’s Lund University, said the United States’ “commitment to Cambodia remains fundamentally geopolitical.”

She pointed out that despite the political repression, Hun Manai’s government still sent some positive signals domestically.

“The new government’s focus on administrative reform, meritocratic discourse, and technocratic policy approaches also allow Western governments to seize their policy agenda,” she said.

Krittenbrink said he and Hon Mane discussed the Ream naval base, a sore point between the two countries that prompted the United States to impose sanctions on senior military figures.

The United States accuses Cambodia of allowing China to develop the base into its only naval outpost. Cambodia denies any such agreement and says China will not have any special access to the base.

Paul Chambers of the ASEAN Community Studies Center at Thailand’s Naresuan University said Kritenbrink’s visit “is intended to send a message to Cambodia that key U.S. officials are concerned about Cambodia’s tilt toward China.”

Chambers said China’s high level of military and economic involvement in Cambodia will remain an obstacle to expanding cooperation with Washington.

On March 13, he said in an email to VOA’s Khmer service that “unless there are compensatory measures – Cambodia allows the United States to carry out the same level of security activities as Cambodia, the relationship between the United States and Cambodia will seriously deteriorate.” . Cambodia canceled annual joint military exercises with the United States in 2017.

Sophal Ear, associate professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management and a long-time observer of Cambodia, is optimistic about a potential breakthrough in U.S.-Cambodia relations.

“Timing is everything. Reconciliation may be on the menu,” he said in an email last month.

“Cambodia is strategically located in Southeast Asia and critical to regional dynamics,” he added. “Engagement with Cambodia allows the United States to promote its governance, trade and regional security interests.”

However, other analysts say the United States may be reluctant to take steps that would significantly change the status of the relationship.

Christopher Primiano, an assistant professor of political science at Huntington College in Alabama who studies China’s role in Southeast Asia, said Washington has no intention of competing with China for military or economic support of Hun Manai’s government.

While the U.S. diplomat’s tone may have changed, he told VOA by phone last week that criticism of democracy and human rights has not stopped.

“This will always be a source of dissatisfaction among Cambodia’s leadership,” he said. “If the U.S. government was very interested in Cambodia as a security partner, then we think we would see less naming and shaming.”

Sim Chansamnang contributed to this report.