International Aid and Authoritarian Rule

Sunday, April 04, 2010
Opinion by MP

Good food for thought by Khmerisation on US and Chinese influence in Cambodia.

Having recently mentioned on this blog that China is a permanent fixture in SE Asia and that the real challenge lies with Cambodia to adapt foreign influences to her requirements and conditions, may I now add a few more points.

1. The US unlike China is a mature, established democracy, and Khmerisation is right to stress the positive role the Americans could bring to the ‘democratic process’ in Cambodia which is still in its nascent stage, hanging perilously by a threat.

On the other hand, being a global power and a democracy are not necessarily the same thing. The US government has what we term public opinion to adhere to, especially, in areas of foreign policy and intervention. The State Department is ultimately answerable to the American electorate who can exert moral or political influence on the direction and limits of American agenda abroad. One of the most important lessons the US State Department has drawn from foreign ventures since the Cold War years is that the US cannot become militarily embroiled in another region or country for long without drawing public outcry or backlash at home. The Vietminh cleverly exploited this weakness of US involvement in Indochina in the sixties and the seventies by launching suicidal offensives against US bases forcing the latter to increase their firepower that in turn resulted in greater losses of American and civilian lives. Because Hanoi had no public opinion to live by and its own collateral losses were not disclosed to world media, there was no obligation on its part to play by the same rules. This was also a dimension of the Vietminh’s triumph over the French at Dien Bien Phu which forced the settlement at Geneva in 1954.

Likewise, the withdrawal of American military involvement in Cambodia and South Vietnam in April 1975 was not so much an abrupt u-turn in US foreign policy or deliberate betrayal of trust of friends and allies (South Vietnam and Cambodia), but more the culmination of the realisation that the US government and, in that sense, the American people, had reached the threshold of their resolve, and exhausted their overstretched responsibility and commitment over Indochina. After all, the war was a huge strain on American economy costing billions of dollars in public revenue and thousands of young American lives.

With this background in mind it would be sensible not to read too much into this latest gesture of US displeasure over Cambodia’s expulsion of Uyghur refugees. In any case, one feels that the US has been far too accommodating towards Phnom Penh in areas of human and civil rights since the early 1990s; the brutal grenade attack in March 1997, the bloody coup against a democratically elected government in the same year and a range of gross excesses that continue to violate ordinary Cambodians’ rights as humans no less blatantly than the much better publicised repatriation of the 12 Uyghurs.

This US forbearance may be partly in line with that pragmatism in foreign policy that has seen successive US administration going to bed with strange bedfellows: he may be a SOB, but he is our SOB! By eschewing direct confrontation with Phnom Penh, the US has also adopted an essentially advisory role in its dealing with that regime, and whether this tactic is conducive to long term mutual benefit remains to be seen. In the mean while, what is clear is that this lenient approach has only served to encourage authoritarianism and foster Cambodian people’s sense of isolation and powerlessness in relations to oppression and tyranny which is not what Americans or any people really desire.

2. It should be beyond dispute that all forms of foreign aid come with strings attached. The impact that such assistance has upon a developing nation like Cambodia depends on 2 essential criteria: a) the motives of the donors and b) those of the recipients themselves. The Japanese or South Koreans may want to involve themselves more on improving infrastructure such as roads and highways knowing improved road links and mobility will lead to greater demand for their mass produced motorised vehicles and facilitate their transportation and extraction of raw materials from the recipient country or region.

The Chinese, on the other hand, with no moral conditions attached to their aid package, are potentially the most exploitative and predatory of donors. Like the Vietminh in the sixties and the seventies, China could take on all of her European and North American rivals as well as Pacific Rim powers like Japan and S. Korea in an economic battle and prevail. As Khmerisation rightly pointed out, the immediate injection of Chinese cash and capital could be just short-lived sugar coated bait that might leave lasting bitter taste in the mouth and stomach. No conditions attached means no questions asked either way: the donor/investor undertakes not to meddle in irrelevant issues like human rights and wrongs, while the recipient grants wholesale concessions to the donor and the freedom to make speedy returns on their investment without being distracted by undue environmental, human rights concerns or verifications.

If we look at those countries that have positively absorbed or assimilated US influence starting with Japan and S. Korea in the wake of the Second World War and the Korean War respectively, they had consciously opted to embrace more than US dollars and economic investment. Rather, with the realisation that foreign influence could come and go, these countries had to take measures to modernise and erect social public institutions as foundations and platforms for their continued social growth and advancement. With sound institutions, every penny earned by the state through public taxation system or external loans and other forms of financial aid is poured straight into state coffer. The government’s main priority will then be the allocation of this money into areas of corresponding need and urgency. Without such institutions in place, Cambodia could continue to rely on foreign aid for another two hundred years and still be economically impoverished. There is no use in publicly chiding generals for stealing soldiers’ salary or for creating an army of phantoms since these individuals know that unless they make good use of opportunities that can be found through such a porous system they would have bypassed a golden chance to enrich themselves, albeit at public expense.

The onus is still therefore very much on Cambodia to choose which path she wants to tread. The climate has never been better for the country to develop and even distinguish itself among other nations in the regions. Whereas the sixties and the seventies were a maelstrom of wars, revolutions and upheavals, the world of today is much more conducive to stability and growth where no one will benefit from chaos and strife. Unless, that is, these elements force themselves upon individuals and society.

MP