Walking a Fine Line: How Cambodia Navigates its Way between China and Vietnam

Summary

Over the course of the last decade, Cambodia’s relations with China have gone from strength to strength, deepening across every field imaginable, and at a pace that gives new meaning to the phrase “breakneck speed”. While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed—and for a brief period entirely halted—the constant stream of official and business delegations from China, Phnom Penh has been expecting their rapid return (some more eagerly than others) when normalcy and regularly scheduled flights resume. The sheer scale of Chinese engagement with Cambodia was well encapsulated by one Cambodian official who noted to the author that the number of official visits to his department was so high they could barely keep up—with at least one group arriving every week. At the same time, the vast amount of Chinese aid and foreign direct investment is omnipresent—hundreds of miles of new roads (of varying quality) built under the ambit of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), new Phnom Penh skylines dominated by Chinesebuilt office buildings and condominiums, and once-sleepy provincial towns and suburbs packed to the gunwales with Chinese-owned factories and shophouses. A visit to the port city of Sihanoukville, constantly touted as the kingdom’s “New Shenzhen”, regularly yields the inevitable joke by Cambodian colleagues when entering the city: “Did you remember your passport? We’re in China now.”

While English remains the second language of choice for the kingdom’s elite, professional class and students, one can easily live and work in Cambodia fully ensconced in putonghua—a far cry from the early 2000s when “Chinese language” meant Chaozhou and Hokkien, and traditional rather than simplified characters on shop signs. Confucius Institutes abound, including branches at various ministries (including the Ministry of Defence), and the kingdom’s Chinese language media regularly trumpets in laudatory terms a daily drumbeat of new initiatives demonstrating the unbreakable ties of Sino-Cambodian friendship. The appointment of Chinese-born, naturalized Cambodian businessman Chen Zhi—chairman of the Prince Group conglomerate—as advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen last year demonstrated to many observers the incredible depth and new reality of Sino-Cambodian relations.