តើ​ប្រទេស​ភូមា​រៀន​ពី​កម្ពុជា ឬ​កម្ពុជា​រៀន​ពី​ភូមា? - Does Burma learn from Cambodia or is it vice-versa?

Monday, 12 December 2011 12:00
តុង សុប្រាជ្ញ
The Phnom Penh Post

សំនួរ​សួរ​ថា​ តើ​ហេតុ​អ្វី​ បាន​ជា​ប្រទេស​ចិន​ជួយ​ផ្ទួន​ៗ​មក​កម្ពុជា​ ដោយ​មិន​មាន​លក្ខ​ខណ្ឌ​ ដូច​សហ​រដ្ឋ​អាមេ​រិក​? ​ហេតុ​អ្វី​បាន​ជា​ចិន​ មិន​ជួយ​រាជ​រដ្ឋាភិបាល​តាំង​ពី​មុន​សាលា​ក្តី​កូន​កាត់​ខ្មែរ​ក្រហម ត្រូវ​បង្កើត​?​ ចុះ ​បើ​សាល​ក្រម​របស់​សាលា​ក្តី​កាត់​ទោស​ថ្នាក់​ដឹក​នាំ​ចប់​ តើ​ចិន​នៅ​តែ​បន្ត​ជំនួយ​ដ៏​សន្ធឹក​សន្ធាប់​ ដូច​បច្ចុប្បន្ន​នេះ​ដែរ​ឬ​ទេ?​ ហើយ​អ្វី​ដែល​ប្លែក​នោះ​ថ្នាក់​ដឹក​នាំ​ប្រទេស​ចិន​កំពូល​ៗ​ឧស្សាហ៍​មក ​លេង​ម្ល៉េះ​?​ បែប​មក​ពី​ស្គាល់​កន្លែង​ហើយ​ បាន​ជា​ឧស្សាហ៍​មក​លេង​ដូច្នេះ​​? ​ការ ​ដែល​ថ្នាក់​ដឹក​នំា​ចិន​ឧស្សាហ៍​មក​លេង ​ឡើង​ថ្នាក់​ដឹក​នាំ​កំពូល​ៗ ប្រទេស​វៀត​ណាម ​ដែល​ជា​ខ្លើ​ម្រាក់​ចាស់​ម៉ឺន​ឆ្នាំ​ច្រណែន​​ក៏​ឧស្សាហ៍​មក​លេង​ ដូច​គ្នា​ដែរ​ ស្របពេល​ប្រទេស​ទាំង​ ២ ​នេះ ​កំពុង​តែ​មាន​ភាព​តាន​តឹង​ នឹង​គ្នា​រឿង​កោះ​ស្ព្រាត​លី និង​ប៉ារ៉ា​សែល​។

The question is: Why does China provides unconditional aids to Cambodia, unlike the US? Why didn’t China provides aid to Cambodia before the KR Tribunal was formed? After the trials of the KR leaders end, will China still continue to provide its massive aid like right now? What is strange is why the Chinese leaders come to visit Cambodia so often? The numerous visits by the Chinese leaders create jealousy among the Viet leaders who feel obliged to pay numerous visits to Cambodia also, after all Vietnam is Cambodia’s multi-millenniums friend whereas China and Vietnam are in tension over the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

រវាង​ជំនួយ និង​ប្រទេស​កំពុង​អភិវឌ្ឍន៍ គឺ​ប្រៀប​ដូច​ត្រី ​និង​នុយ​អ៊ីចឹង​ ឲ្យ​តែ​បោះនុយ​ភ្លាម​ត្របាក់​ឃ្លឹប​ភ្លែត​ ពេល​ខ្លះ​មិន​ដឹង​ថា​ នៅ​ក្នុង​នុយ​នោះ ​មាន​ផ្លែ​សន្ទូច​នោះ​ទេ ​គេ​ស្ទូច​យក​អ្វី​មួយ​ទៅ​បាត់​ដោយ​មិន​ដឹង​ខ្លួន​ទេ​។​

សព្វ​ថ្ងៃ​នេះ មាន​ប្រទេស​ ២ នៅ​លើ​ពិភព​លោក គឺ​ចិន​ និង​អាមេរិក ដែល​ចង់​បង្ហាញ​ពី​ឥទិ្ធពល និង​ដណ្តើម​ទីផ្សារ​ដូច​គ្នា ​តែ​មាន​និន្នាការ​ខុស​គ្នា តាម​រយៈ​ការ​ផ្តល់​ជំនួយ​មូលនិធិ​ ប្រាក់​កម្ចី​ និង​សម្ភារ​ក្តី ​ឲ្យ​ទៅ​ប្រទេស​កំពុង​អភិវឌ្ឍន៍​នានា​ នៅ​លើ​ពិភពលោក​។​ ប្រទេស​ចិន​មាន​និន្នាការ​ឲ្យ​ជំនួយ​ គឺ​ឲ្យ​ប្រទេស​នោះ​អភិវឌ្ឍនិង ចាត់ចែង ចាយវាយដោយ​ខ្លួន​ឯង​ ឯ​ជំនួយ​របស់​អាមេរិក​វិញ គឺ​តែង​តែ​ភ្ជាប់​មក​ជាមួយ​កិច្ច​សន្យា ធ្វើ​យ៉ាង​ណា​ឲ្យ​ប្រសើរ​ឡើង​ នូវ​សិទ្ធិ​មនុស្ស ​និង​បច្ចេក​ទេស​អភិវឌ្ឍ​។ ដោយ​ឥទ្ធិពល​ប្រជែង​គ្នា របស់​ប្រទេស​ទាំង ២ ​នេះ​ហើយ​ ពេល​ខ្លះ​ត្រូវ​បាន​គេ​មើល​ឃើញ​ថា​ «ចិន និង​អាមេរិក​មើល​មុខ​គ្នា​មិន​ចំ​!»​។

​តើ​តាម​រយៈ​ជំនួយ​ ប្រទេស​មហា​អំណាច​យក្ស​ទាំង ២ ​នេះ​ មាន​ឥទិ្ធពល​អ្វី​ខ្លះ​មក​លើ​ប្រទេស​ភូមា​ និង​​កម្ពុជា​?​ ហើយ​ធ្វើ​ឲ្យ​ប៉ះ​ពាល់​អ្វី​ខ្លះ ដល់​និន្នាការ​អភិវឌ្ឍ​ដល់​ប្រទេស​ទំាង ​២​ នេះ​?​

Thais Threaten to Close Cambodian Borders

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 November 2009

Thailand’s deputy prime minister on Friday warned the country could close its borders to Cambodia, after each withdrew their ambassadors in a worsening row over ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Both sides have troops amassed on the border following skirmishes over Preah Vihear temple last year, but military officials said Friday the situation remained calm.

The two countries share seven international checkpoints, as well as 12 others, along 800 kilometers of border.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban was quoted Friday saying worsening relations could lead to closed checkpoints, following Cambodia’s announcement it had made Thaksin an economic adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Thaksin is in self-imposed exile and faces a two-year jail sentence for corruption charges if he returns to Thailand. Hun Sen has said he would welcome the former premier, who was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, in spite of an extradition treaty with Thailand.

“If Cambodia still adopts a hard line and uncompromising attitude, then we must continue to downgrade relations and maybe seal off all border checkpoints,” Suthep was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said he wasn’t surprised by the warning, but he added that Thailand would suffer more from a border closure than Cambodia.

The deepening diplomatic crisis had no bearing on a military standoff along the northern border, officials said Friday.

Defense Minister Tea Banh told VOA Khmer the border situation was “quiet” and “normal,” despite the withdrawal of ambassadors from Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

Chea Mon, commander of Division 4, said Cambodian soldiers were maintaining their positions on the border, which was quiet.

Sino-Vietnam ties continue to sizzle

February 19th, 2009
By Nazia Vasi
2point6billion.com (China)

This week marks the first of China’s four anniversaries - thirty years since China’s brief but bloody invasion of Vietnam which resulted in a victory for both sides.

As history goes, China attacked Vietnam to prove two points. and Firstly to teach its southerly neighbor a lesson for invading Cambodia in December 1978 and defaming genocidal tyrant Pol Pot and his Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge communist regimesecondly to assert its dominance in the region against Soviet Russia and prove to the U.S. that China was a reliable ally. The Sino-Vietnam war on 1979 lasted a month and was the last of the Indochina Wars of the twentieth century.

“It was a bleeding strategy to burden Vietnam while China was able to carry out economic reforms,” Xiaoming Zhang, an associate professor at the US military’s Air War College in Alabama told the AFP.

Although much water has flowed under that bridge and Sino-Vietnam ties are high again, suspicions between the two communist countries are still apparent.

One of the most apparent bones of contention however still exists between the two countries over occupation of the South China Sea a region rich in oil and marine life. Although China did sign the ‘Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea’ with ASEAN members in 2002 laying to rest disputes with Vietnam, Vietnamese suspicion of the Chinese remains intact as China’s influence in the region increases.

Disputes between Beijing and Hanoi are rife mostly over the Spratly and Paracel islands. An archipelago of more than 30,000 islands and reefs in the South China Sea that form part of the Coral Triangle and who are being tapped for their oil, gas, rich marine life and contain one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

The Geology and Mineral Resources Ministry of the People’s Republic of China has estimated that the Spratly area holds oil and natural gas reserves of 17.7 billion tons, as compared to the 13 billion tons held by Kuwait, placing it as the fourth largest reserve bed in the world.

In 1988, the South China Sea accounted for eight percent of the world’s total catch. The number has certainly risen in the last few years. The PRC has predicted that the South China Sea holds combined fishing and oil and gas resources worth one trillion dollars. Additionally, tanker traffic through the South China Sea is estimated t be over three times greater than that through the Suez Canal and five times more than through the Panama Canal. Twenty five percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the South China Sea.

China downplays anniversary of Vietnam border war

Tue Feb 17, 2009
By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday sought to downplay the 30th anniversary of a short but bloody border war with one-time close Communist ally Vietnam, barely mentioning it in the media and seeking to deflect questions.

China invaded Vietnam on February 17, 1979, to punish Hanoi for toppling the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge in Cambodia one month earlier. China had previously given Hanoi steadfast support against U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.

The month-long border war in which some say 60,000 soldiers or more were killed is a memory both governments are happy to suppress.

Neither country, run by stability-obsessed Communist parties, wishes to stoke any expressions of strident nationalism among their people, and both are keen to expand trade bilateral trade, which last year grew to $21 billion.

"China and Vietnam have had a period of unhappiness in their past," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

"But what's important is that the leaders and people of both countries have a broad wish and consensus to create a bright future together. History has already reached its conclusions," she added, declining to say if China planned to mark the day at all.

Chinese media made little mention of the anniversary, though the website of the Global Times (www.huanqiu.com), an outspoken tabloid published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, carried a series of old pictures from the war.

The war was "forced" on China following Vietnam's mistreatment of ethnic Chinese and its invasion of Cambodia, all of which "seriously threatened and damaged China's modernisation and border security," it said.

The war "punished and taught a proper lesson to the Vietnamese invaders," the newspaper added.

"People say that a war between two socialist countries is the hardest to comprehend, and that war between two Eastern countries is the bloodiest," said the article on the "counter-attack in self-defense war."

Two comments by online readers of the piece, also carried on a Shanghai-government linked website, www.eastday.com, did not mince their words, though.

"China's old generation of leaders believed that struggle was necessary to protect territory. Today's officials should learn from that!" wrote one.

"I really don't understand why veterans of the war have to go to Hong Kong to get their books on the war published," wrote another.

Vietnamese newspapers did not mention the war at all, though at a small park near the Chinese embassy in Hanoi, about 40 Vietnamese police did marching drills.

The embassy has been the scene of a few protests over the years, including one with a few hundred youth when China reportedly set up a county-level government to administer the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

Both governments claim ownership of the islands, which are thought to sit on valuable oil and gas deposits.

Hanoi and Beijing have agreed not to upset the status quo, but both are firm in their claims of sovereignty.

Last July, China pressured Exxon Mobil Corp to pull out of an oil exploration deal with Vietnam that it saw as a breach of Chinese sovereignty. In May, BP Plc halted plans to conduct exploration work off the southern Vietnamese coast, citing territorial tensions.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang also defended China's ties with Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, saying it was part of normal diplomatic relations, as a trial began in Phnom Penh of the group's chief torturer.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch in Hanoi; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China aimed to ‘teach Vietnam a lesson’: Expert

2/17/2009
AFP

HANOI: On February 17, 1979, after months of verbal and armed clashes, China launched a massive offensive against Vietnam to teach its communist ally “a lesson” for becoming too independent for Beijing’s liking.

Known as the Third Indochina War, the roots of the brief but bloody conflict lay in the ideological rivalries between China and the Soviet Union.

During the war against the United States, Moscow supplied Vietnam with vital military aid. After the end of that conflict, Sino-Vietnamese relations were further strengthened when Hanoi rejoined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), created by Moscow in 1949.

Conversely, relations with China, which was establishing contacts with the United States, deteriorated further. Initially, the Chinese said their offensive was “limited” and not a claim on Vietnamese territory.

Beijing’s declared objective was to punish Vietnam, whose troops had six weeks earlier invaded Cambodia to topple the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot, who was supported by China.

The invasion of Cambodia was the final straw for Beijing, which decided it was time to put back in its place a Vietnam which was increasingly defying China’s authority in the region and had repressed its ethnic Chinese Hoa community, analysts said. Beijing also believed Vietnam had shown a lack of gratitude for valuable Chinese support during the war against the French and at the start of the conflict with the Americans.

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping launched the Vietnam offensive “to teach them a ‘lesson’,” recalled Jean-Claude Pomonti, long-time regional correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde.

For China it was “a semi-success or semi-failure—the Vietnamese resisted well,” he said, but “it was no disgrace: Deng, who detested the Vietnamese, (meant to) put them on the right path.” “China wanted to attack us to force us to withdraw our troops from Cambodia,” said retired Vietnamese Lieutenant-General Vu Xuan Vinh. “But we were able to use many local forces. We did not fall into the trap.”

The Chinese operation was preceded by an intense artillery bombardment against several locations along the 1,400km frontier between the two countries.

Chinese troops then penetrated dozens of kilometres into northern Vietnam to take control of several towns, notably Lang Son, Cao Bang and Lao Cai, before withdrawing a month later on March 16. There is no reliable figure for the number of casualties, which varies according to source and country, but the war did claim tens of thousands of lives.

Both sides said they had won, but the Chinese People’s Liberation Army failed to deal a decisive blow in its attack against a much smaller adversary.

Vietnam tense as China war is marked

A Vietnamese guard stands next to a marker for the "Friendship Border Gate" on the Chinese-Vietnamese border. Neither Vietnam nor China seem to wish to repeat the bitter events of 1979

Monday, 16 February 2009
By Nga Pham BBC News

Vietnam is marking the anniversary of its border war with China with an uneasy quiet, as official channels avoid mentioning the events of 30 years ago.

But simmering nationalistic emotions are being brought to the surface by painful memories.

Hoang Thi Lich, 72, remembers vividly the morning of 17 February 1979, when she and her family woke to a suffocating sense of panic in the mountains of Cao Bang.

As dawn broke, China launched attacks on a number of positions in Vietnam's northernmost provinces with a staggering display of so-called "human waves" and artillery power.

Mrs Lich's family was quickly evacuated from her small hamlet in Hoa An district, along with a dozen other ethnic Tay families.

She recalls: "We were told to run southwards... I could hear loud gunfire. I was so frightened I froze for a long while, I did not know what to do."

Mrs Lich's family escaped to safety.

Just 18 days later, in the same Hoa An district, retreating Chinese soldiers reportedly hacked to death 43 people - mostly women and children.

Naive hopes

The Chinese attacks caught the Vietnamese off-guard, despite rumours of a war initiated by China's then-leader Deng Xiaoping circulating for months within Vietnamese political circles.

A former top official at Vietnam's embassy in Beijing, Duong Danh Dy, warned from early 1978 that the bilateral relationship between Hanoi and Beijing was worsening by the day.

In July 1978, after what Beijing considered mistreatment of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, China halted assistance to its neighbour, prompting Hanoi to sign a "co-operation and friendship" pact with Moscow soon after.

Around the same time Hanoi intensified its efforts to topple Beijing's ally, the Khmer Rouge's ultra-Maoist regime.

The bloody Vietnam-Cambodia conflict marked the first ever war between two communist nations.

Chairman Deng vowed to "teach Vietnam a lesson".

Vietnam's Duong Danh Dy, referring to a televised news briefing by the Chinese leader in December 1978, recalled: "I would never forget his face when he described Vietnam as a 'hooligan'.

"At that stage, we all thought 'that's it, a war is no longer avoidable'," Mr Dy said.

"But deep down inside we still hoped, perhaps naively, that since Vietnam and China had been so close and brotherly, they [the Chinese] wouldn't turn on us so fast and so strongly."

Isolation

Instead, Beijing mobilised hundreds of thousands of troops and volunteers in its largest military operation since the Korean War.

Vietnam, meanwhile, was in a difficult situation having to deal with its Cambodian conflict and reconstructing a near-collapsed economy.

"We have been faithful to our promise not to bring up old events for the sake of the relationship between the two countries" - Duong Danh Dy, ex-official at Vietnam's embassy in Beijing

Vietnam's former first deputy foreign minister, who was in office when the border war began, said his country's isolationism had left it vulnerable.

"We were too dependent on our ideological allies, and by that time the only ally we had was the Soviet Union," said Tran Quang Co.

"Being a small country living next to a big country, we needed more friends. We needed to expand our ties and diversify our relations."

China's "pedagogical war" lasted just over a fortnight, with both Vietnam and China claiming victory.

Though disputable, estimates suggest that up to 60,000 lives were lost on both sides.

As well as the loss of life, the trust and fraternity that the two communist parties had struggled to build during the previous half a century suffered a severe blow.

In his memoir Memories and Thoughts, Tran Quang Co cited Vietnam's late leader Vo Van Kiet as saying in 1991 - the year the two countries normalised their relationship - that China "was always a trap".

'Too compromising'

The mutual distrust has lingered through the years, occasionally flaring when bilateral disputes occur.

Vietnam saw mass protests in December 2007, when China reportedly announced plans to establish an administrative unit to govern the Spratly and Paracel islands - territories claimed by Vietnam.

A smaller demonstration took place when the Beijing Olympic torch reached Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City.

However, such protests are uncommon.

Hanoi is trying hard not to jeopardise the warming ties with its giant neighbour. Neither Vietnam nor China seem to wish to repeat the bitter experience of 1979.

With bilateral trade rapidly growing and a land border agreement expected to be finalised soon after 35 years of negotiations, some say relations between the two are the best they have ever been.

The Vietnamese government is therefore keeping a close eye on what the media write about Vietnam-China relations - especially sensitive issues such as border or territorial claims.

"China is getting stronger so Vietnam needs to learn more [cleverly] how to co-exist with it," said senior diplomat Le Cong Phung.

Last week, the newspaper Saigon Tiep Thi published an article by well-known journalist Huy Duc on the 1979 border war on its website. The story was removed within hours.

"We have been faithful to our promise not to bring up old events for the sake of the relationship between the two countries," said Duong Danh Dy, who is now one of Vietnam's leading China experts.

The official stance has been condemned by the public as too soft and too compromising.

Internet forums and personal blogs are flooded with anti-China comments as the anniversary of the border war approaches.

In the Du Lich newspaper, a recent essay slipped past the state censors, praising the "pure patriotism and proud spirit" of the anti-Chinese protesters in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

As this nationalistic flame burns, the question of whether it will spread like wildfire depends on both governments' policies towards each other.