China's assistance benefits whole society of Cambodia? ... Dream on!

Chinese assistance to Cambodia has so far led to the strengthening of Hun Xen's autocratic and dictatorial regime, as well as to the demise of democracy in Cambodia. The same Chinese assistance to the Khmer Rouge regime in the 70s led to the killing of more than 2 million Cambodians!!!

China's assistance benefits whole society of Cambodia: Cambodian DPM

August 14, 2010
Xinhua

China's aid to Cambodia contributes to the country's social and economic development, and significant reduction in poverty, said Sok An, deputy prime minister, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"The relations between Cambodia and China, I could say without hesitation is very good," Sok An said. "China is one of the main development partners of Cambodia and has provided significant assistance to Cambodia."

"Most of China's assistance is for infrastructure development, such as construction and repairs of roads and bridges and for other important development projects such as irrigation system, expansions of river port, electricity distributions, and many others," said Sok An.

Moreover, China has also assisted Cambodia's human resources development through providing scholarships to deserving Cambodian students and government officials to study in China.

Sok An, also the minister of Council of Ministers, said that " the roads and bridges have strategic role to play in facilitating local and regional transport and an access to remote areas, so goods and services can move faster from one place to another. This in turn leads to price reduction, benefiting consumers."

He pointed out that Chinese assistant projects helped to attract more investment from all sectors to different parts of Cambodia, which can create jobs for people there. So they can generate more income to support their families.

At the same time, these assistant projects (roads and bridges) have promoted tourism "which is important for employment creation and for enhancing national and sub-regional activities and thus economic growth as the transportation cost is reduced."

Besides, these roads and bridges have connected people from more developed areas to less developed ones; for example, providing faster access to education and health services, the deputy prime minister said.

China-funded construction of roads to Preah Vihear Temple unambiguously plays crucial role in opening up Preah Vihear area, he said. It both helps promote and preserve Cambodia's rich cultural heritage and attracts national and international tourists to the area.

The deputy prime minister said China's aid, with the participation of private sector, has resulted in "impressive economic growth, reaching double digits of 11 percent during 2004- 2007; and significant reduction in poverty from 49 percent in 1994 to 35 percent in 2004, to 30 percent in 2007 and to 27.4 percent in 2008 and it is even lower today."

Sok An during the interview cited some mega projects funded by China, including: Building of the Office of the Council of Ministers; Prek Kdam bridge; Prek Tamak bridge; Cambodia-China Friendship Se Kong bridge; National Road No. 57 (Pailin); National Road No. 62 from Kampong Thom to Tbeng Meanchey, Preah Vihear; National Road No.8, connecting Krek and Meun Chey; and National Road No. 76 from Senmonorom (Mondul Kiri) to Dakdam.

The China's assistance to Cambodia started on 1950s, including grants and loans. Since then 110 projects have been implemented, includes providing large quantities of commodities.

"In the meantime, China's assistance is effective and the implementation of the China-funded projects in Cambodia is made with minimal procedural requirements," he stressed.

Sok An said that Cambodia needs more financial and technical support for further development, so he hopes that the bilateral cooperation relations between Cambodia and China will be further strengthened.

Cambodia tightens economic links with China

China's Vice President Xi Jinping toasts with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen (R) after signing an agreement on cooperation at council of minister in Phnom Penh December 21, 2009. REUTERS/Chor SokuntheaMon Dec 21, 2009

Jared Ferrie

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia signed 14 deals worth an estimated $850 million with China on Monday, two days after defying international pressure by deporting 20 ethnic Chinese asylum-seekers, underlining growing trade and diplomatic links.

China, Cambodia's biggest source of foreign direct investment having pumped more than $4.3 billion into the impoverished nation, agreed to help fund projects ranging from roads and irrigation to temple conservation and a new a parliament building.

The exact value of the agreements, signed during a visit by Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, was not disclosed. But the pacts were widely believed related to a deal worth $853 million when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, met in Sichuan on October 15.

The agreements came two days after Cambodia deported 20 ethnic Uighurs at China's request, despite having signed a 1951 treaty banning the forced repatriation of refugees who face persecution at home.

The Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim group, were involved in ethnic rioting in western China in July that killed 197 people. They were smuggled into Cambodia about a month ago and applied for asylum at the United Nations refugee office.

U.S.-based Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer said in an opinion piece in Monday's Wall Street Journal that Cambodia's deportation was "no doubt influenced by enormous Chinese pressure, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in aid."

China has repeatedly said the Uighurs in Cambodia were under investigation and were suspected of being criminals, without giving details.

"China thanked the government of Cambodia for assisting in sending back those people," said Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanarith.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights accused Cambodia of bowing to pressure and deporting the asylum seekers having given "strong assurances" it would be allowed to complete its investigation to determine their status.

Cambodia has said the Uighurs entered the country illegally and it was implementing its own immigration laws.

(Editing by Martin Petty and Sugita Katyal)

China ready to enhance relations with Cambodia as US fumes

Dec 21, 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on Monday talked of enhanced relations with Cambodia, days after the Phnom Penh government expelled 20 Uighur asylum seekers sparking outrage among human rights groups and the US government.

In talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Xi said China was willing to enhance cooperation with Cambodia in various fields and push bilateral relations to a higher level so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples, officials said.

For its part, Cambodia was willing to enhance all-round cooperation with China, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said.

Phnom Penh demonstrated that willingness to oblige Beijing when it deported 20 Uighur asylum seekers back to China on Saturday night, the eve of Xi's arrival.

The deportation outraged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, human rights groups and the US embassy in Phnom Penh.

'On December 19, the Royal Government of Cambodia, at the request of China, forcibly removed a group of 20 Uighur asylum seekers back to China in apparent violation of Cambodia's international obligations,' the US embassy said in a statement released in Phnom Penh.

It expressed concerns for the welfare of the Uighurs, whom the UNHCR fears could face torture in their homeland.

'The United States strongly opposed Cambodia's involuntary return of these asylum seekers before their claims have been heard. This incident will affect Cambodia's relationship with the US and its international standing,' said the US statement.

The Cambodian government has claimed the 20 Uighurs had entered the country illegally and thus must be deported.

'There was nothing wrong with the deportation of 20 Uighurs from Cambodia back to China,' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kuy Kong.

'Cambodia was only implementing the migration law of 1994,' he added, refusing to comment on the US embassy statement.

During his three-day visit in Cambodia, Chinese Vice President Xi is scheduled to sign agreements on 14 different projects with Cambodia including for the restoration of Takeo temple and provide a loan of 50 million yuan for a road construction project.

Cambodia balances East and West

Oct 20, 2009
By Sebastian Strangio
Asia Times Online (Hong Kong)

PHNOM PENH - At a ceremony last month marking the construction of the US$128 million Cambodia-China Prek Kdam Friendship Bridge in Kandal province, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said the growth in aid and investment from China was boosting economic development and strengthening his country's "political independence".

"China respects the political decisions of Cambodia," he told his audience. "They are quiet, but at the same time they build bridges and roads and there are no complicated conditions." It was a thinly veiled reference to the strings attached to Western aid, including calls for progress on anti-corruption reforms, and underscored China's growing role in Cambodia's developing economy.

With a still booming economy amid the global economic downturn, China has maintained the momentum behind its strong commercial diplomacy towards Southeast Asia. Cambodia - a small but important corner of Beijing's emerging regional economic sphere of influence - has been one of the key beneficiaries of the loans, aid and investment largesse.

Official "friendship" delegations between the Chinese Communist Party and Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party have proceeded apace throughout the crisis. During a three-day visit to China's Sichuan province that concluded over the weekend, Hun Sen and Chinese officials announced $853 million worth of new Chinese loans and grants for various infrastructure projects in Cambodia.

The funds will be dedicated to hydropower projects, two bridges and the rehabilitation of the highway linking the country's Kratie and Mondulkiri provinces. The announcement comes on top of the $880 million in loans and grants Cambodia has received from Beijing since 2006, including finance for the $280 million Kamchay hydropower dam in Kampot province and the recently completed $30 million Council of Ministers building in the capital Phnom Penh - presented as a gift from the government in Beijing.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Qian Hai said Chinese investments in Cambodia as of 2009 totalled $4.5 billion, a commercial success he credits in part to a policy of respecting Cambodia's sovereignty. "We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Cambodia," he said. Phnom Penh has traditionally reciprocated by recognizing Beijing's One-China policy, advocating "peaceful reunification" between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, Qian Hai added.

China's global sales pitch to developing countries, essentially aid and investment decoupled from prickly issues of human rights or democratic reforms, has in recent years scored diplomatic points in Phnom Penh. But like most Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia has had a complicated and sometimes stormy historical relationship with Beijing.

The 1950s and 1960s were marked by close relations, cemented by the close personal friendship between Cambodia's mercurial Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who offered the beleaguered Sihanouk asylum - including a residence and official stipend - after he was overthrown by the US-backed General Lon Nol in 1970.

China's support from 1975-79 for the radical Khmer Rouge regime - as a counterweight to the assertiveness of the recently reunited socialist Vietnam - led Hun Sen to refer to China as "the root of everything that was evil" in Cambodia in a 1988 essay. As memories of Cambodia's long civil war have faded and Hun Sen has consolidated his power, historical grievances have yielded to more practical concerns. (After Hun Sen ousted then-first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a bloody factional coup in 1997, it is notable that China was the first country to recognize his rule.)

China's commercial growing economic ties to Cambodia are only one aspect of its re-engagement with Southeast Asia. Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and the author of Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World, said that around the time of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, China began to assert itself in the region through greater aid disbursements, new trade arrangements, cultural diplomacy and military ties.

"China ... saw broader China-ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] relations as a way of reassuring countries in the region that China would be a peaceful and non-interfering type of power - that China could work well with ASEAN and thus demonstrate it could play the game of soft, multilateral diplomacy," he told Asia Times Online.

Countervailing aid

Chinese aid is in some measure weaning Cambodia off its dependence on the West, which still contributes nearly half of the country's annual budget.

On October 16, the National Assembly debated a new trade treaty with China with lawmakers from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) arguing that Chinese-funded projects have had adverse effects on the environment and local people. SRP parliamentarian Mu Sochua singled out a 199,000-hectare agricultural concession granted to Chinese firm Wuzhishan in the country's northeast Mondulkiri province, which she said has illegally stripped large tracts of land from ethnic minority Phnong villagers.

Carlyle Thayer, a professor of political science based at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Sydney, said China's strategy of "non-interference", enshrined also in the ASEAN Charter, has been a major selling point for Beijing in Southeast Asia, where in some countries it is viewed as a shield against pressure from the United States and other Western countries. "Chinese aid offers an escape hatch for countries under pressure from the West [that] promote human rights and democratic reform," Thayer said.

Kurlantzick said that Chinese aid was likely to have a "corrosive" effect on good governance and human rights in Asia. "Hun Sen knows how to play China off of the Western donor groups and China's aid - even if not necessarily linked to any downgrading of human rights - could have the effect of a kind of race to the bottom on human rights," he said.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at the US-based Human Rights Watch, agreed that unconditional Chinese aid to Cambodia could act as a "financial lifeline" that might otherwise be cut by Western donors. She said, however, that since Western nations often failed to work together effectively to set and enforce aid conditions in Cambodia, China's growing presence may end up having little distinct impact on human rights.

"The most important point - and key problem - is that the government in Phnom Penh ... seems determined to be extraordinarily abusive, regardless of whoever's money is on offer," she said.

Despite the recent influx of Chinese capital, there is no indication Hun Sen's government is ready to abandon ties to the West. Chea Vannath, an independent political analyst based in Phnom Penh, said that growing Chinese influence would likely be used to counterbalance the influence of Western countries - a vital strategy for a country of Cambodia's small size and redolent of Prince Sihanouk's balancing act during the periods of the Cold War that he ruled the country as prime minister, from 1955 to 1970.

"I think that what the government is trying to do is to diversify its aid ... It is eager to strike a balance," she said. "As a sovereign government, Cambodia needs aid from both sources."

Thayer agreed that rumors of a drop in Western - particularly American - influence were exaggerated. In 2007 US-Cambodia relations warmed when Washington lifted restrictions on the provision of aid to the central government, imposed following the coup of 1997. The US was already the top destination for Cambodia-made garments and textiles, one of the country's top exports.

In June, US President Barack Obama signalled his intention to boost trade further by removing Cambodia and Laos from a Cold War-era US trade blacklist, opening the way for American businesses to access US government-backed loans and credit guarantees for trade and investment between the two countries.

"All the countries of Southeast Asia, to varying extent, have long adjusted to China's rise and political influence," said Thayer. "They do not want to be put in a position of having to choose between China and the United States."

Sebastian Strangio is a reporter for the Phnom Penh Post in Cambodia.

Chinese PM vows to jointly tackle int'l financial crisis with Cambodia

CHENGDU, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged to work along with Cambodia in tackling the international financial crisis and provide affordable assistance to the Southeast Asian country.

China and Cambodia are partners of comprehensive cooperation and have supported each other in bilateral and multilateral fields, Wen told his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen Friday in a meeting following the opening ceremony of an international trade fair in the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Confronted with the global financial crisis, China will spare no effort in its cooperation with Cambodia and will jointly overcome the difficulties, Wen said, pledging to boost bilateral trade and implement infrastructure construction projects funded by China in Cambodia.

Hun Sen appreciated China's assistance, saying it has brought about benefits for numerous Cambodians and asked China to continue participation in the country's economic progress.

The Cambodian government and its people cherish their friendship and cooperation with China, he said, vowing to enhance cultural, social and youth exchanges with China.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: China AIDS

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Cambodia PM lauds China's aid

Mr Hun Sen said Beijing's aid had helped Cambodia become more independent while fostering social and economic development. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Sep 14, 2009
Reuters

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA'S premier lauded China on Monday for providing billions of dollars of aid without imposing conditions, a subtle jibe at Western donors who seek curbs on human rights abuses and corruption.

'They are quiet, but at the same time they build bridges and roads, and there are no complicated conditions,' Prime Minister Hun Sen at a ceremony for the construction of a new bridge built with US$128 million (S$182.6 million) of Chinese aid.

Mr Hun Sen recently rejected World Bank aid intended for settling land disputes after the Washington-based institution and rights groups accused Cambodian authorities of forcibly evicting tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Speaking to about 1,000 villagers and China's ambassador in Prek Kdam, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the capital Phnom Phen, Mr Hun Sen said Beijing's aid had helped Cambodia become more independent while fostering social and economic development.

'China respects the political decisions of Cambodia,' he said. 'We have a mutual understanding and respect each other.' Cambodia's government has come under fire recently, accused of corruption and undermining the judiciary, although analysts say the investment environment is stable after decades of poverty, brutalilty and instability.

China is Cambodia's biggest aid donor, providing US$600 million in 2007 and about US$260 million in 2008. It also leads the country's foreign direct investment, with about US$1 billion spent in the war-scarred South-east Asian nation this year.

Mr Hun Sen added he also supported China's multimillion dollar investments in hydroelectric power. Western environmentalists have accused Cambodia of failing to provide adequate environmental safeguards for such projects.

Chinese influence in Cambodia: Nearly one-third top news of Cambodia in 2008 related to China

Media: Nearly one-third top news of Cambodia in 2008 related to China

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Almost one-third of the top political, economic and social news of Cambodia in 2008 were related to China, according to the year-ending news charts published on Wednesday by the kingdom's longest-running Chinese-language daily newspaper the Commercial News.

The official goodwill visit to Cambodia by China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin from Dec. 2 to 6, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic ties between China and Cambodia, as well as the maiden visit by Chinese military vessel on Nov. 4, were seen among the "Top 10 Political News of Cambodia in 2008" recommended by the paper.

Its "Top 10 Economic News of Cambodia in 2008" highlighted the 257 million U.S. dollars of donation that the Chinese government had promised to give the kingdom in 2009, the June 27 Exhibition of Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Cambodia, as well as the completion of the renovation work of Cambodian National Road No. 7 under the financial aid of China.

The Commercial News on Wednesday also published the "Top 10 Social News of Cambodia in 2008," which included the 1.3 million U.S. dollars of donation by all sectors of the Cambodian society for the earthquake-affected areas of China, and the Dec. 11 inauguration of the Phnom Penh China-Cambodia Friendship Radio to provide trilingual broadcast services in Khmer, Chinese and English for the audience of the kingdom.

According to the Cambodian Investment Committee, China topped the list of foreign investing countries in Cambodia in the past 14years, with its total amount reaching 5.707 billion U.S. dollars, among 24.768 billion U.S. dollars in all.