Without true democracy and a legitimate anti-graft system, Cambodia is destined for heavy debts, low-end jobs, exploited lands and depleted natural resources under its current relationship with China, prominent exiled opposition politician Mu Sochua told Asia Times in an exclusive interview.
Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement For Democracy (KMD), a United States-based activist group, was vice president of the nation’s largest opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), when the Supreme Court banned and dissolved it in October 2017.
She and other CNRP politicians fled the country after the arrest of CNRP leader Kem Sokha on treason charges, including unproven allegations he was working with the United States to stage a “color revolution” the party has consistently maintained are trumped up.
Seven years later, Mu Sochua continues to challenge the democratic legitimacy of the prevailing Cambodian People’s Party (CPP)-dominated political order forged in recent stage-managed elections the CNRP insists have been neither free nor fair.
In particular, she says the West should review the implementation of the Paris Peace Agreements, signed in October 1991, to ensure Cambodia’s sovereignty, self-determination through free and fair elections, and human rights after decades of debilitating civil war fueled by competing great and regional powers.
That independence, Mu Suchua asserts, is under rising threat from China’s growing power and influence over the ruling CPP.
She said China’s influence has grown rapidly in recent years, seen in the increasing presence of China’s military, cybercrime and human trafficking operations run by the Chinese mafia, the provision of loans through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and an influx of Chinese mining and construction companies.
Former Prime Minister Hun Sen prioritized China ties toward the end of his decades-long rule as relations with the West soured on issues related to democracy and human rights. And there has been no sign of a shift in the dynastic handover to his son Hun Manet, who became prime minister in 2023.
“Cambodia is in debt about US$11 billion, 40% of which is owed to China,” she said. “When we talk about the BRI, the money is not given to us for free. It’s a loan and it has no conditions on rule of law, democracy, independent media and independent judiciary in Cambodia.”
“It is also a loan to push the agenda of Chinese President Xi Jinping to gain dominance, not just in a country or a region, but global dominance.”
She said, under the BRI framework, Beijing offers loans to help Cambodia build its infrastructure, including airports, roads, dams and a new strategic canal. In return, Mu Sochua claims, China is allowed to boost its military presence in the country.
“It is a secret deal made by Hun Sen with China. It is not transparent at all,” she said. “China wants to use Cambodia as a proxy power to show that it can influence ASEAN, the European Union and the United Nations.”
She asserts that with heavy debts owed to Beijing and China’s growing military presence in the country, Cambodia’s sovereignty is at stake.
“Our country is in debt, our people are in debt,” she said. “Hun Sen is taking Cambodia away from the West. It’s not that we want to be with the West. We want to be a part of the world and have our government ruled by law and governed by the people. We want our leaders elected by the people freely and fairly. We want to put freedoms and human rights as top priority.”
On August 5, Xinhua reported that Cambodia began to build the US$1.7 billion Funan Techo Canal, designed to link the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh, to its coast.
Bankrolled by China, the 180-kilometer-long canal will give Cambodia access to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce its current reliance on Vietnamese ports for trade.
However, the US, Vietnam and others are worried that the canal, as well as the newly expanded Ream Naval Base, will ultimately be co-opted by China’s military, giving Beijing a strategic southern flank in the South China Sea and pressure points on mainland Southeast Asia.
Mu Sochua said Cambodia’s strategic geography could reinforce China’s position in any invasion of Taiwan. She said that by returning to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, Cambodia would have a democratic government with the power to reverse the Chinese military presence, helping prevent a potential war in the Taiwan Strait.
Cambodia’s constitution bars the deployment of foreign troops on Cambodian soil. Hun Sen has consistently denied his previous government had entered any “secret” agreements to allow China to establish a permanent military presence in the country.
Chinese mafia hub
Hun Sen was willing to look the other way, however, as Chinese crime groups established operations in the country, often under the guise of casinos.
In a report published in August 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimated that there are at least 100,000 and 120,000 people forcibly involved in online scam centers in Cambodia and Myanmar, respectively.
It said victims are mostly men who are “well-educated, sometimes coming from professional jobs or with graduate or even post-graduate degrees, computer-literate and multilingual.”
Victims were lured by fraudulent online ads for lucrative high-technology jobs but then trafficked illegally into scam compounds, where they are held by armed gangs in prison-like conditions and forced to run online scams, according to a report published by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an independent institute founded by US Congress in 1984, in May 2024.
USIP’s report said that Southeast Asia’s China-origin criminal networks and their online scamming operations are threatening human security globally and posing a growing threat to the national security of the US and its allies and partners around the world.
It said casinos and hotels left empty by the Covid pandemic’s suppression of tourism have been fortified and repurposed for online scamming in a vast web of elite-protected criminality spread across Cambodia.
The report said the return on cyber scamming in Cambodia is estimated to exceed US$12.5 billion annually, which was about 39% of the country’s gross domestic product (US$31.77 billion) in 2023.
Mu Suchua said Chinese crime groups are now using Cambodia as a hub for cybercrimes and that billions of dollars generated by online scammers from Cambodian soil are going straight into the pockets of local tycoons protected by Hun Sen.
“What the international community must do right now is to coordinate its efforts to push for targeted sanctions against the high-ranking officials in the regime of Hun Sen that are involved in cybercrimes,” she added, apparently referring to Hun Manet’s successor regime.
Deep-rooted corruption
In January this year, the non-governmental organization Transparency International published its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which scored 180 countries on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Cambodia scored 22 while ranking 158th among 180 surveyed countries.
“Cambodia is ruled by one man, one family. Look at the wealth they have. A watch costs $3 million and Hun Sen has five of those,” Mu Suchua claimed. “All this ill-gotten wealth is coming from cybercrimes, the extraction of natural resources and the deforestation of Cambodia.”
“And why are we now in debt to China and the people in Cambodia are in so much debt to the micro-finance institutions?” she said. “There are two million unskilled Cambodian workers in Thailand. Why did they leave Cambodia? Because the country has no education and land for them.”
There are about 50,970 Cambodian migrant workers in South Korea, 22,262 in Malaysia and 20,056 in Japan, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training in Cambodia said earlier this year.
The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho) said more than 2.2 million hectares of land in Cambodia from 330 concessions are controlled by economic land concessions (ELCs), a program that has caused many land disputes and environmental issues since 2022.
Asia Times has contacted Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia regarding Mu Suchua’s allegations and criticisms but did not receive any responses.
KMD on a mission
Mu Suchua’s KMD was registered in the US state of Massachusetts last December and officially launched in California in March 2024. Its key mission is to unite the people of Cambodia by adhering to the principles of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.
“We want to build a platform for all who are outside and inside of Cambodia to come together and promote democracy, rule of law and human rights so that we can rebuild Cambodia together,” she said.
She said although the KMD is banned in Cambodia, it can still connect with people in Cambodia through social media and local partners.
Mu Sochua said the KMD will continue to lobby Western governments, chambers of commerce and industry groups to raise awareness about Cambodia’s entrenched forced labor, persecution of political activists and overall lack of democracy, rights and freedoms.
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US based.oppositions aka US funded pawns.
Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement For Democracy (KMD), a United States-based activist group.
Ah USA based Group, funded by CIA, another pawn another ukraine
Seems to work in many countries ! Use the neighbors to fight a bully.
” Prominent exiled opposition politician sees China as a hindrance to Cambodian democracy, freedom and sovereignty ”
All you have to know – NED stooge!
These stooges are well endowed now that Congress has approved 1.6 bllions retroactively to smear China. She is working hard to ensure anti-China sentiment buried in every paragraph.
claim her monies from CIA . that’s what counts
While Chinese are not well endowed.