The way in which the Cambodian government has been forced on the back foot by stressing that the purchase of 290 military vehicles from China was from private donations and not from the state purse is intriguing.
Prime Minister Hun Sen explained this week that he ordered the trucks last year, but they failed to arrive in February because of the pandemic. They instead arrived this month.
According to him, they were ordered because the military had struggled with transportation after the 2018 dam collapse in Laos, after which floodwater flowed into Cambodia, and Cambodian soldiers didn’t have the transport capabilities necessary to deal with moving supplies.
In full: https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/who-actually-funds-the-cambodian-military/
