By WILLIAM BOOT / BANGKOK
The Irrawady
“What the Chinese really want out of Cambodia is the oil and gas, just like in Burma. Nothing else really matters” - Collin Reynolds, energy industries analyst-consultant based in BangkokForced evictions from settled land; government collusion with commercial interests; a failed legal system; large untapped gas and oil reserves—and increasing Chinese influence.
Sound familiar?
It could be Burma, but it describes Cambodia today as the country awakens from its Khmer Rouge nightmare.
A new Amnesty International report says the Cambodian government involvement in land grabs for business merely underlines a process that has been underway for some time.
The report comes as evidence also emerges of China’s growing “fraternal” relations with the Phnom Penh government.
The closer ties aren’t because Beijing is keen to help the Cambodian people, say observers, but because of the insatiable Chinese appetite for oil and gas resources under the sea in Cambodian territorial waters, as well as the potential of the country’s rivers for Chinese state hydroelectric enterprises.
Cambodians might be sitting on as much as two billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to recent reports by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
But both organizations have voiced concern that unless these resources are handled well, Cambodia could become the Nigeria of Southeast Asia.
Nigeria has netted US $450 billion from its oil during the last 35 years, but more than half the population still earns less than $1 a day, and there is a national debt of $30 billion.
About one-third of Cambodia’s 14 million people live on much less than $1 a day, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in 2007.
The Amnesty report warns that 150,000 Cambodians are at risk of losing their home and land as vested government-business interests push self-enriching developments.
“Depending upon the world price of oil, Cambodian reserves may be contributing annual revenues of $2 billion, several times the current level of domestic revenue and ODA (overseas development aid) combined—within perhaps five to ten years,” says a World Bank report.
But the bank adds: “International experience suggests that such petrochemical wealth may equally well result in a ‘resource curse’ that actually retards development and poverty reduction.”
That curse is the corruption which often ensues from sudden large wealth. Cambodia may be stable and improving after the years of Khmer Rouge chaos, but there is little sign of progress toward accountable and transparent government.
Prime Minister Hun Sen and his cronies maintain a tight grip on power.
Much of Cambodia’s potential is under the Gulf of Thailand, less than 200 kilometers from the sleepy port of Sihanoukville that is set to become a black-gold boom town—again with Chinese involvement.
Cambodia has six potential offshore hydrocarbon fields in its territorial waters, plus several sea areas disputed with neighbor Thailand. Only one of them has so far been explored.
The US oil company Chevron currently has the lead in undersea exploration work, with France’s Total, South Korea’s GS Caltex and Japan’s Mitsui Oil bidding for a slice of the action. But analysts say Chinese influence over the Hun Sen government could beat most of them to the big prize.
Two Chinese state enterprises, the China National Offshore Oil Company and China National Petroleum Corporation—which are also exerting influence in Burma in the offshore Shwe gas field and a planned oil transshipment land pipeline—are also studying the fields.
The China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation is set to build an oil refinery in Sihanoukville capable of processing 40,000 barrels a day. The refinery will likely cost more than $400 million.
The Cambodian NGO Center for Social Development estimates that, aside from international donor agencies, China has become the biggest commercial investor in the country, ranging from timber to textiles.
“What the Chinese really want out of Cambodia is the oil and gas, just like in Burma. Nothing else really matters,” said energy industries analyst-consultant Collin Reynolds in Bangkok.
“China is becoming increasingly dependent on importing both, and the closer to home they can get them the more they will seek to exert their influence to achieve that.”
