PHNOM PENH – Cambodia’s newly proposed Funan Techo Canal, a project under the auspicious of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, aims to connect the national capital to coastal areas to facilitate trade, reduce logistics costs and streamline transport – all the while reducing dependence on Vietnamese ports.
But recent reports have suggested the Beijing-financed, US$1.7 billion channel could also be used as a gateway for Chinese forces, thus threatening the security of neighboring Vietnam and advancing the notion that Cambodia serves as China’s willing proxy.
The reports, citing a research study issued by an institute under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, suggest the canal could open the way for Chinese military vessels to travel deep into Cambodia via the Gulf of Thailand and toward the Cambodia-Vietnam border.
Although the concern was voiced by non-state Vietnamese actors, the alarm-bell analysis is essentially the Vietnamese state expressing its concern via an unofficial channel to avoid straining official relations with Phnom Penh.
But Cambodian leaders understood well the rub. That is why Cambodia’s former, long-ruling prime minister and current Senate President Hun Sen strongly refuted the idea the canal could be used for Chinese military purposes.
“First and foremost, why does Cambodia need Chinese troops? Second, Cambodia and Vietnam are good neighbors who cooperate in all areas. Third, China and Vietnam have good relations and are comprehensive strategic partners. Finally, why would Cambodia allow Chinese troops into the country if it violated the Constitution?” Hun Sen wrote in a post.
Vietnam’s apprehensions about the project were first aired by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet during a December 2023 meeting in Hanoi. Then, Vietnam’s official concern centered on the project’s reputed environmental impacts.
But Hanoi has China’s perceived strategic ambitions more in mind. Major news outlets including Nikkei Asia have followed up with reports on Chinese warships now docked at Cambodia’s Ream Naval base, which opens onto the Gulf of Thailand.
The Nikkei article relied on imagery analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank that showed the warships had been docked at the Cambodian port for “much of the past five months.”
China has recently helped Cambodia dredge the base to allow for larger ships to dock. Cambodian officials have said the recent presence of Chinese warships there was solely for training exercises with the Cambodian navy.
Suspicions about China’s ambitions in Cambodia have been on the international media’s radar since 2019, when the Wall Street Journal published an article alleging that Cambodia had entered into a “secret” pact to allow China to use its naval base for 30 years, with automatic renewals for every 10 years after that.
The bombshell article claimed an early draft of the supposed deal was seen by US officials. The fact that Ream Naval Base is situated near the to-be-built Funan Techo canal has added new fuel to the accusation of a secret Cambodia-China base deal.
Cambodian leaders have frequently and forcefully denied the allegation of a deal allowing for a permanent Chinese military presence on its soil. Hun Sen and others have cited the Cambodia Constitution’s Article 53, which dictates that the country must remain neutral and non-aligned. Foreign military bases on Cambodian territory are barred by the constitutional provision.
The Cambodian government went as far as to invite foreign journalists to visit Ream Naval Base in July 2019 in a public relations bid to show that there was no foreign military presence at the base. Still, many in the West and some neighboring countries, among them Vietnam and possibly Thailand, suspect China has designs on eventually establishing a game-changing military presence in Cambodia.
They argue that the constitution and related laws say one thing now but can always be amended later to allow for a foreign troop presence.
However, this all ignores Cambodia’s strong historical rationale to remain neutral amid a new era of potentially destabilizing superpower rivalry. During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was precisely the presence of Viet Cong troops on Cambodian soil that drew it unwillingly into the Vietnam War, igniting a disastrous three-decade civil war.
The Viet Cong had infiltrated Cambodia’s eastern border and used the country’s remote eastern territory as a sanctuary and procurement route. Cambodia’s ability to curb the Vietnamese infiltration along their 600-mile border was then limited, leading to further Viet Cong penetration.
That, in turn, led to America’s infamous B-52 bombardment of Cambodia, an indiscriminate campaign that eventually gave rise to the genocidal Democratic Kampuchea, or Khmer Rouge, regime and the killing of between 1.7 to 3 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.
The presence of foreign forces on Cambodian soil was the root cause of this tragedy, from which the nation is still and may never fully recover. It was only through UN-sanctioned political resolution and deft domestic political maneuvers that the nation finally achieved peace and stability.
All of this needless death and conflict left a deep, permanent and ultimately immeasurable scar on the nation and its people. Cambodia learned the hard way about the potential devastating impact of allowing foreign forces—whether invited or not—on its soil amid heated great power rivalry.
Insinuating that Cambodia would now consider allowing another foreign military presence on its soil wrongheadedly suggests its leaders have somehow forgotten this not-so-distant past, including all those who perished in the killing field era.
So be assured that Cambodia understands all too well the danger of coming between hegemons. There is an old saying that when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. Clearly, Cambodia doesn’t want geopolitical elephants fighting on its land ever again.
Sothearak Sok is a Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and a lecturer at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.