Wednesday, June 23, 2010
AP
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — China stepped in Wednesday to provide Cambodia with more than 250 military vehicles after the United States earlier suspended a similar shipment when the Cambodian government deported 20 asylum seekers.
Washington announced in April that it had suspended a military aid program that included the supply of 200 vehicles in response to Cambodia's deportation of 20 Uighurs who had fled ethnic violence last year in China's far west. China accused the Uighurs of involvement in the violence.
The 257 Chinese vehicles, including 200 transport trucks, were presented to the Cambodian military in a ceremony on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
"China has helped Cambodia for quite a long time. What Cambodia has requested, China has always provided us whenever it could," said Moeung Samphan, Cambodia's deputy minister of defense.
Chinese President Hu Jintao offered Cambodia the trucks along with 50,000 military uniforms during a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Shanghai in May. The offer came less than a month after the U.S. cancellation.
China's influence in Cambodia is considerable despite Beijing's strong backing of the former Khmer Rouge government that caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.
It has provided millions of dollars in aid to Cambodia over the past decade, agreed to write off debts and granted it tariff-free status for some 400 items.
But Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told journalists Wednesday that Cambodia welcomes aid from other countries as well.
"China has no influence on Cambodia at all. We accept all foreign aid if it is given without conditions," he said.
Washington announced in April that it had suspended a military aid program that included the supply of 200 vehicles in response to Cambodia's deportation of 20 Uighurs who had fled ethnic violence last year in China's far west. China accused the Uighurs of involvement in the violence.
The 257 Chinese vehicles, including 200 transport trucks, were presented to the Cambodian military in a ceremony on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
"China has helped Cambodia for quite a long time. What Cambodia has requested, China has always provided us whenever it could," said Moeung Samphan, Cambodia's deputy minister of defense.
Chinese President Hu Jintao offered Cambodia the trucks along with 50,000 military uniforms during a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Shanghai in May. The offer came less than a month after the U.S. cancellation.
China's influence in Cambodia is considerable despite Beijing's strong backing of the former Khmer Rouge government that caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.
It has provided millions of dollars in aid to Cambodia over the past decade, agreed to write off debts and granted it tariff-free status for some 400 items.
But Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told journalists Wednesday that Cambodia welcomes aid from other countries as well.
"China has no influence on Cambodia at all. We accept all foreign aid if it is given without conditions," he said.
21 comments:
yeah right! because of these aids without conditions or Chomnuoy Eut Chamnang, we died only 2 millions people! what if there is a string attach to it? then we no longer exist in this planet! give me a break! you guys ever deal with the Chinese folks or with any other nationalities (doesn't have to be Chinese) it's natural to expect ROI or Return on Investment! stupid foreign minister!
shut up already! it goes to show that there are many many fish in the ocean, ok. stop playing the waiting game for too long because cambodia waits for no one, really! god bless cambodia and all khmer people!
yes, the world is bigger than your oyster, my dear!
when cambodian use the laws of the land or the rule of law, ah Kwack Goverment will have no chance in cambodia, really! i think cambodian people in cambodia are getting smarter by the minute, really! opposition is still backward and stupid, and they still live in the dark ages and stone ages, at least in their mentality, you know! stop being stupid for a change, please, for the sake of cambodia, ok!
STOP playing with ah Kwack! and use people power to kick morhetfuckers to hell!
1:50 AM
1. MOK
2. HEN
3. BANH
4. MAON
5. NAM
6. SOK
7. BUN
8. DOM
9. SHIN
10. MOY
10 more choppers paleasseee!
REALLY!!! we need laws and justice!in Cambodia!
Please help UN!!!!!
China buy influences of those corrupted CPP. Why would China give $257 million worth of trucks and other supplies while average chinese labors only earn $100 per month. That is not much greater than that of average earning in Cambodia.
Thanks China. Cambodia also needs tanks (Type 99) and jet fighters (J-10).
12:02 AM,
You hit the nail on the head, my friend!
Hor Nam Hong is full of shit!
The Chinese is quite thrifty by their nature; so don't expect anything for free, Mr. crazy Hor!
China started giving aid to foreign countries in 1953. To begin with the beneficiaries were the three small neighboring countries of North Vietnam, North Korea, and Outer Mongolia, particularly the first two. In 1956, capitalizing on the spirit of Bandung, China began giving aid to some of the neutral countries of Asia, such as Ceylon, Nepal, and Cambodia. In time China’s aid program expanded to include more distant neutral countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Cuba, and Guinea. But the Communist countries of Asia have enjoyed the lion’s share of Chinese aid, in the form of equipment, factories, raw materials, manufactured goods, and technical assistance. North Korea and North Vietnam have also received substantial military equipment. During China’s first five-year plan, China provided aid amounting to approximately $647 million, of which $118 million were given in 1953-54, $166 million in 1955, $171 million in 1956, and $192 million in 1957. The amount of Chinese aid in 1958 was $116 million a lower figure than any of the previous three years, but in 1959 it rose to $253 million .
A close China-Cambodia relationship appears awkward on the surface because China was the devoted and dedicated patron of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from its inception in the 1960s through insurgency, conquest, genocide, defeat, insurgency, and peace. Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen, by contrast, has dedicated his life since 1977 to destroying the Khmer Rouge movement in which he was once of battalion commander. Although it was the People’s Army of Vietnam that pushed the Khmer Rough into Thailand in January 1979, it was Hun Sen and his peers in the Cambodian People’s Party that assumed political leadership. Led Cambodia into the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, and arguably, earned a place in two coalition government following elections in 1993 and 1998. Hun Sen wrote in a 1988 essay that China was the root of all that was evil in Cambodia. But just as Cambodia and Cambodians are demonstrating an almost unfathomable capacity to let bygones be bygones with regards to the former Khmer Rouge. Hun Sen has now buried the past and is embracing China, which he sees as a means of bringing economic development to Cambodia. The biggest payoff for Cambodia thus far came in February 1999 when Hun Sen paid an official visit to Beijing. Hun Sen obtained $18.3 million in foreign assistance guarantees and $200 million in no-interest loans for infrastructure projects, and China summarized the visit as “a new high” in Cambodia-China relations. China acknowledges that the $218 million figure is one of the highest aid amounts they provide to any country in the world .
A sampling of type of Chinese enterprises active in Cambodia can be seen in a list of recipients of loans awarded in April 1999 by the China Import-Export Bank as part of the $220 million aid package described earlier. Unfortunately it is not possible to definitively determine whether each company is fully state-owned, partially owned, or private, but from the names it is fairly clear which have a government affiliation: A $2 million loan in support of a $4.9 million multi-product agriculture development program in Koh Kong province by China’s Guangxi province, Beihai City Overseas Development Corporation. A $2.5 million loan in support of a $4.4 million multi-product agriculture development program in Kampong Speu Province by China Overseas International Technical Economic Cooperation Company. A $2.4 million loan to China’s Qunken Group for a 7,500 hectare industrial park. A $975,000 loan in support of a $5 million joint venture between Tianjin Pharmaceuticals and Cambodia Medicines Limited. A $975,000 loan in support of a $1,97 million investment in plastic products by China Light Industrial Machine Corporation. A $500,000 loan in support of a $1 million investment by China Jilin Textiles Corporation. An unspecified portion of $18.3 million in low-interest loans for a joint-venture sugar refinery in Kampong Cham province between a Cambodian company and China Overseas Engineering Corporation. A $4.8 million grant aid for a Chinese well-digging team to dig an additional 500 wells . In April 1998, Guangxi Haining Company agreed to invest $40 million in agribusiness. In May 1999 Yuanwang Group signed a $50 million cement manufacturing joint venture.
In December 2000, Pheapimex signed a joint venture agreement with the Chinese Farm Cooperation Group to build a pulp and paper mill. The $70 million joint venture is to be financed with a loan to the Cambodian government from the Import-Export Bank of China. The loan forms part of a deal between the Chinese and Cambodian governments to boost trade and investment between the two countries. Under the terms of the loan, Pheapimex and the Chinese Farm Cooperation Group will pay 5% interest to the Cambodian Government. The government will in turn pay 3% interest to the Chinese import-export Bank . Pheapimex, a notorious Cambodian logging company, has benefited from many of Hun Sen’s handouts. Pheapimex controls a total of seven percent of the land area of Cambodia. The company is owned by Chheung Sopheap (Yeay Phou), a close friend of Hun Sen. Her husband, Lau Meng Khin is a director of Wuzhishan, which in 2004 started clearing forests in a 315,000 hectare plantation concession, originally awarded to Pheapimex .
China was Cambodia’s top foreign investor in 2004, with more than $80 million flowing into the country through private firms. Also keeping pace with Chinese investment has been the flow of senior officials from Beijing: President Jiang Zemin visited in 2000, Premier Zhu Rongji in 2002, Foreign Affairs Monister Li Zhaoxing in 2003, Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi in 2004, and now Wen Jiabao visited Cambodia as well .
On Saturday 08 April 2006, China pledged $600 million in aid to Cambodia, the last day of Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to the impoverished Southeast Asian country. Wen and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also help talks and presided over the signing of 11 bilateral agreements . Nearly half of the Chinese money will go towards financing a new hydropower plant. China’s state owned Sinohydro Corp won a contract to build a $280 million hydropower plant in Sout-western Cambodia last year. Another $200 millions will go towards building two new bridges across the Mekong and Tonle sap rivers, while the rest will go towards other project, including the construct of a grand new council of ministers building to replace the dilapidated structure now housing the main government offices.
Western diplomats and aid officials in Phnom Penh said they believed that Cambodia had recently granted China the rights to one of five offshore oil fields that could yield as much as $700 million to $1 billion a year .
China is the biggest sources of military aid to Cambodia, contributing more than 5 million U.S dollars a year. Over the past three years, China had spent approximately 40 million yuon (or about 5 million dollars) a year. The projects have included building the High Command Headquarters on National Highway 4, developing the Combined Arms Officer School Thlok Tasek near the town of Pich Nil in Kampong Speu province and constructing a five-story building at Preah Ket Melea military hospital which was recently completed .
According to the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC), China had become Cambodia’s largest investor in the first ten months this year with 400 million dollars in investment projects approved by the CDC (2005) .
Cambodian Investment Board data show that 9.18% of total approved investment from August 1994 to June 2006 originated from China, accounting for 243 different projects with a fixed-asset value of $925 million over a diverse cross-section of industries, including agriculture, mining, oil refining, metals production, vehicle manufacturing, garments, hotels and tourism. That evident in the brisk Cambodian trade of Chinese manufactured goods. In 2003, 11.3% of the country’s imports originated from China, which in turn bought just 1.1% of Cambodia’s meager merchandise exports, according to International Monetary Fund statistics. By 2004, 16.5% of Cambodia’s imports valued at $527 million came from China- a statistic that excludes the 19.9% of total imports that came from Hong Kong worth $615 million.
Cambodia is strategically vital to China because it overlooks crucial sea lanes and could conceivably share a maritime border if China’s military eventually enforces Beijing’s claims to disputed, energy-rich atolls in the South China Sea. Beijing currently gives more civil aid to Cambodia, more than $2 billion since the 1970s, than any other country, according to Sophie Richardson, author of a recent doctoral thesis on China’s relations with Cambodia at the University of Virginia .
China has maintained a high profile in Cambodia despite its previous strong backing of the Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the late 1970s . Between 1975 and 1979, China supplied the Pol Pot regime with over 200 tanks, six Mig fighters, several naval gunboats, 30,000 tons of ammunition, and at least 15,000 advisors, according to Chung Khuang Weng, a former Chinese embassy official in Phnom Penh . One pro Beijing source put the level of Chinese aid to the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea at $1 million a month. Another source, although it did not give a breakdown, set the total level of Chinese assistance, to all the resistance factions, at somewhere between $60 million and $100 million a year .
why china supported Pol Pot, those included money and advisor?
I agree wiyh 8:08. Yes we need China advanced weapons such as the T99 tanks (equivalent to American M1), and most importantly the jet fighter J10B which can easily beat Thai F16.
First of all, I would like to say hello to all of Khmers on Earth, and I'm one of Khmers on Earth too. I love my people and country. No matter what happened in the past, but from now on, I'm begging to all of Khmers living on this Earth that must be united and supported each other. In the last sixty years, we have been lost so much already, but I believe that we still have one thing survived "Our Hearts" and no one can take it from us. Finally, I'm begging to all of Khmers again that "Stop listening and trusting to the old school propaganda of the Vietnamese communist, and the former (Thieu's regime) as well.
Everyday when I wake up in the morning, I think of the ancestral land (Ancestor's land, Kampuchea krom). However, I believe that I'm not the only one who think about the lovely land we had lost but millions of Khmers Kampuchea Krom have the same as of my feeling. Khmers people will not give up, and one good day, God will give us a tremendous power then we will kick the Vietnamese communist out of our land just piece of cake.
King Norodom Sihanouk and his son should support PM Hun Sen, Hun Sen's son, and all khmers people on this Earth. I believe that King Sihanouk and his son had earned BA or Master degree but their heart are too honest. I meant, they are too kind and nice. That's why the Vietnamese communist and Thai people tried to use and take advantage of their kindness. Khmers people had lost so much land just because of the King of Khmers. However, PM Hun Sen has not abstained Bachelor or Master degree because he was born and raised up during the war time. Moreover, I believe that PM Hun Sen has ability to deal with Thai people and Vietnamese communist because he is able to reach their mind and knows what they want. He is fine, but if anyone who wants to invade and fight then he will be waiting for them. Everything will be all right.
Most of the Vietnamese communist high officers had earned the third grade of the village school in countryside of North Vietnam.
Compared to the last six decades, For now, PM Hun Sen's military is the best that Cambodia ever had. Since 1941-1978, Sihanouk, Lon Nol, and Pol Pot's militaries had weakened (useless). However, PM Hun Sen and his son Manet have capability to create a military strength, so that i can prove that they know how to protect Cambodian people and country as well. I gave him a B+
If Thai government thinks that Cambodia is a small country and military is weaken then them, just let them tried. I suggest that if Thai continue to brake the law, Cambodia's military must be moving toward to Bangkok and take the land back. I believe that the central land of Thai is belong to Cambodia.
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