Asia Times

Picture this: Somewhere in the South China Sea, which China claims as its own, a Chinese warship confronts a Philippine warship or, maybe it’s vice versa, and shots are exchanged

Increasingly, the arena of international affairs is being shaped by soft power. Where traditional economic and military might once reigned supreme, a nation’s strength may now be derived from the appeal of culture, political values and policies.

Authoritarian PM Hun Sen has reportedly given Beijing the green light for a naval base on the Gulf of Thailand.

Spanish man freed by Phnom Penh court, but local environmental campaigners face grave dangers.

Nuon Chea, recently deceased chief organizer and ideologue of the murderous Khmer Rouge, epitomized the ‘banality of evil’.

With the disappearance of Cambodia’s sovereignty over its prime seaside as reflected in Australia’s incessant media coverage highlighting Canberra’s concerns that China is “taking over” Sihanoukville for a military base, now is the right time to remind Australia and the international community: We told you so!

The soap opera that is contemporary US-Cambodian relations continues to deliver surprising plot twists.

If the relationship of a journalist to politicians is supposed to be that of a dog to lampposts, as one saying goes, or either at their throat or at their feet, according to another, then Cambodia’s media today are retentive and supine.

The establishment of a Chinese naval presence in Cambodia is the logical outcome of America’s long-flawed policies towards Phnom Penh.

July 10 marks the third anniversary of the killing of prominent political commentator and human-rights defender Kem Ley.

Newly finished rail link re-establishes train travel between the two neighbors precisely 45 years after the line was cut at the end of the US-Vietnam War.

In a telling article published this week in The Diplomat, a strong case was made by two Beijing-based analysts warning investors about the dangers of offshoring garment production from China to Cambodia and Vietnam.

After relentless protests, the Hong Kong administration was forced to cave in, shelving a contentious extradition bill that would have seen people transferred out of the city to any jurisdiction, including mainland China.

But government disagrees, says global warming is something happening in other countries.

W Patrick Murphy, a veteran American diplomat known for his democracy-promoting ways, is expected to go head-to-head soon with PM Hun Sen in Phnom Penh.

After I published yet another story in Asia Times last week on the possibility of Cambodia being removed from the United States’ and European Union’s preferential trade deals (the GSP and EBA respectively, which grant quota and tariff-free status to some Cambodian exports), I received a message on Twitter posing a question I realize I haven’t yet tried to tackle.

Coordinated withdrawal of Cambodia’s EU and US tariff-free trade privileges would devastate crucial garment exports and flatten the economy.

US concerns about an emerging China-backed facility in Cambodia could put the nation in the middle of an emerging new Cold War.

Cambodia recently marked “National Anger Day” with a live re-enactment of the savage atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, which the country’s current leader, Hun Sen, served before fleeing to Vietnam, reportedly in 1977.

“It is traditional Asian culture, [that] when children are young, parents look after them, and when parents are old, their children look after them. Children are taught to respect elders, stay with them and care for them when they get old.”