Anti-China sentiment in Cambodia: Whither Khmer nationalism?
Anti-China sentiment in Cambodia: Whither Khmer nationalism?
WRITTEN BY DAVID HUTT AND BRADLEY J MURG
5 November 2020
On 23 October, a small protest took place in front of the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh by supporters of the now-banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Former opposition leader Sam Rainsy as reported in a local media, had called for demonstrations at Chinese embassies and consulates across the globe in response to the continuing controversy over the possible development of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia. This allegation has consistently been denied by the Phnom Penh government for more than three years, yet in October was restated by the Pentagon and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo following the destruction of an American-funded building that had served as Cambodia’s Tactical Headquarters of the National Committee for Maritime Security at Ream — creating an argumentum ad nauseam from both sides that is likely to continue.
The protest itself, while small and ultimately broken up by local police, illustrates that anti-China sentiment has begun to openly enter national political discourse in Cambodia. While Khmer nationalism has long-been utilised by opposition figures to drum up support, it has shifted focus over the last two years. Previously well-known for virulent attacks on Vietnam, the opposition has now moved on towards the China question – recognising growing popular animus against China's place in Cambodia since Beijing became its largest investor, lender, and aid provider in the mid-2010s.
Reliance on China for Cambodia’s economic recovery is likely to further fuel anti-China sentiment in the country – with pre-COVID-19 patterns of anti-China, nationalist discourse returning and strengthening.
In 2018, Sam Rainsy spoke of "the newly-arrived Chinese in Cambodia, loaded with dollars, show their scorn for the local Cambodian population, who are shocked by their behaviour and habits". He went on: "They must return the land that was seized from our villagers, close their casino chains, and take their mafia and triad gangs, associated with their investments and establishments in Cambodia, back to China". On 23 October, Sam Rainsy took part in a small protest outside the Chinese embassy in Paris, where he has lived in exile since 2015. It was, he wrote on Twitter, to “protest Chinese aggression in SE Asia and the colonisation of Cambodia”.
Phnom Penh between the US and China
Here a little history helps. Cambodia was aligned with Western states throughout the 1990s and 2000s - the US has poured more than $1bn into the country since that time — Phnom Penh’s relations with the West have fractured in recent years. In early 2017, Cambodia 'suspended' joint-military operations with the US because, it said, troops were needed to manage upcoming commune elections. Those joint drills were never resumed, and, afterwards, Cambodia began military exercises with China instead. Later in 2017, the CNRP, the only viable opposition party, was dissolved by the Supreme Court over accusations of plotting a US-backed coup. Kem Sokha, the party leader at the time, was arrested for treason and still awaits his day in court (Rainsy was forced into self-exile in late 2015 and then to step down as party president in early 2017 to avoid the dissolution of the party).
Since then, US-Cambodia relations have worsened. Without the CNRP on the ballot, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in power since 1979, went on to win all parliamentary seats at the 2018 general election, which the White House described as “neither free nor fair and failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people”. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on three Cambodian officials and businesspeople, while the European Union (EU) responded to the CNRP’s forced dissolution more forcefully by partially removing Cambodia’s trade privileges having previously given Phnom Penh several years to meet particular targets on human rights and democratisation. Amidst all of this, Cambodia’s relations with China, since 2017, have significantly improved.
Sam Rainsy. Image credit: Flickr/Prachatai
In many ways, this was to be expected. China’s growing economy and its efforts to expand its trade and investment routes (especially after President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013) naturally meant that greater sums of capital began to flow into Cambodia, greatly helped by the dominance of the US dollar in Cambodia. Bilateral trade rose from $3.7bn in 2013 to more than a reported $9bn in 2019. Closer association with Beijing provided Cambodia’s ruling party with financial and geopolitical cover in the context of domestic political de-liberalisation, knowing that without Chinese assistance the US and EU could have forced it into a political retreat through sanctions and cuts in aid.
Chinese largesse has been widely viewed among analysts throughout the region as entailing a clear 'quid pro quo', demonstrated in 2012 and again in 2016 when Phnom Penh prevented the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from passing statements critical of China’s belligerent actions in the South China Sea. A few days after Cambodia prevented such a statement in 2016, Beijing pledged an additional $600m in aid and loans to Phnom Penh. The issue persists: a particularly strong statement on the topic was made in October by Bilahari Kausikan, former permanent secretary of the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who argued that ASEAN might need to cut Cambodia as well as Laos out of the regional bloc if they continue to act as 'proxies' for other powers (i.e. China).
We are, thus, at a point where Cambodia is at the centre of a superpower tug-of-war between the US and China. In a separate article published in Pacific Forum in October, one of us discussed the problematic nature of what we called the 'Incentivisation Argument' in relation to the Chinese military base allegations, which we described as the contention made by many officials in the Cambodian government and government-affiliated think tanks that "any move by the United States that is perceived as harmful to the Cambodian government will simply push Phnom Penh deeper into the arms of China".
Expanding on that analysis, it is useful to raise another point: the 'Incentivisation Argument' ignores the role of domestic nationalism and assumes that Cambodia could move closer to China without experiencing a real popular backlash. Indeed, how hamstrung will Phnom Penh be in the coming years by having to assuage the anti-China sentiment that is now commonplace amongst ordinary Cambodians? In light of recent events and a clear division in sentiment towards China felt by the Cambodian government on one side and parts of the Cambodian populace on the other, it is a good time to explore more deeply the dynamics of Cambodian nationalism, its shifts in recent years, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the trajectory of popular nationalism in the country.
The shifting ‘other’: Cambodia’s nationalist sentiment evolves
All Southeast Asian cultures have an 'enemy' that frames their nationalism. For the Vietnamese it is China. For Thais it is Myanmar, and vice-versa. For Cambodians, the historic enemy is Vietnam. Cambodia was threatened throughout most of the 19th century by raiding parties from Siam (now Thailand) and the kingdoms that now make up Vietnam. Its western reaches, including the Angkor Wat temples that defined the peak of the Khmer Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, were annexed by Siam, while Vietnam's Nguyen dynasty threatened the east. There was a good chance that Cambodia would disappear, in the same way as the Champa Empire before it, after it was annexed by Vietnam. Today, the Cham are minorities in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Cambodia's statehood was secured in 1863 after King Norodom acceded to a French Protectorate. Cambodia's foreign and trade relations were in the hands of the French, as was most of its domestic policy. However, even before Cambodia was officially integrated into French Indochina in 1887 (adjoined with Vietnam and Laos), the French colonial government brought in Vietnamese officials to administer large chunks of the bureaucracy in Cambodia, particularly tax collection, the greatest bane for Cambodian peasants (France would officially take over the king’s right to collect taxes in 1897). Peasant rebellions, chiefly against the strict tax codes, would take place frequently until the early 20th century.
Because of this, the Vietnamese in Cambodia were not only viewed as historic aggressors against Cambodian statehood but also as a repressive bureaucratic elite. This dual role would linger throughout the 20th century, even after Cambodia achieved independence in 1953. During the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Vietnamese community that had remained in Cambodia was virtually wiped out. Another turning point came in 1979 when the Vietnamese military alongside Khmer Rouge defectors invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Pol Pot regime.
For many, the Vietnamese military did not 'liberate' Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge but 'invaded' and then 'occupied' the country during the 1980s. Indeed, Vietnamese troops only left in 1989, and the socialist government they installed followed Hanoi's orders (The Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party would be renamed the Cambodian People's Party in 1991, and later transition from a command economy to a market capitalism-based model of development). Throughout the 1980s, many of the individuals who would emerge as the major opposition leaders in the 1990s, particularly Sam Rainsy, cut their political teeth through a nearly constant drumbeat of anti-Vietnam rhetoric. By the time that Rainsy's CNRP became the country's only viable opposition party after the 2013 general election when it won 44.5 per cent of the popular vote, the anti-Vietnam sentiment was a core message in its campaigning; ‘B’do’ (change) and ‘yuon’, a racial epithet for the Vietnamese, became the opposition party’s two main rallying cries.
Thus, anti-Vietnamese nationalism in Cambodia took on three not entirely separate forms. First, Vietnam was seen as a historic enemy, the main threat against Khmer statehood in the 19th century and then an occupier in the 1980s. Second, the Vietnamese were perceived as a foreign elite responsible for overseeing the most controversial areas of Cambodia's governance, chiefly taxation in the late 19th and 20th centuries and early 20th century, and then foreign policy in the 1980s. Third, from the 1990s onwards, Vietnam was perceived as a force preventing the democratisation of Cambodia, in which the opposition movement attempted to frame the ruling CPP as a 'lackey' to Hanoi – and, it was thus argued that Hanoi continued to interfere in Cambodia's domestic politics.
While issues with Vietnam remain, e.g., the questions of border demarcation, land encroachment, and the legal status of ethnic Vietnamese in the country – the ‘other’ against which popular Cambodian nationalism develops today has to a significant degree shifted towards China. However, it is important to recognise that there are significant differences between anti-Vietnam and anti-China sentiment. First, the ethnic-Vietnamese today are seen as being both elites and paupers, from Sok Kong, the Vietnamese-Cambodian businessman behind the petrol firm Sokimex, to the ethnic Vietnamese fishermen who can be seen living in rickety floating villages near central Phnom Penh.
Yet there appears to be a blanket perception of the Chinese in Cambodia as exclusively being wealthier than ordinary Cambodians and as business owners. Second, much of the anti-Vietnamese sentiment came from a sense of superiority of Cambodian culture and history, whereas present-day anti-Chinese sentiment comes almost solely from a position of relative weakness. Third, there was no great historical enmity between Cambodia and China. Relations were close between the two states during what many Cambodians now remember as the 'golden age' of King Sihanouk's rule between 1954 and 1970. An essay written in 1969 by Alain-Gerard Marsot, titled 'China’s Aid to Cambodia', could so easily define China’s role in Cambodia today. Back in 1969, he wrote:
For Chinese aid, though ostensibly without strings, was a means of increasing Chinese influence in that country [Cambodia]…
There is the inclination of Chinese aid towards programs of industrialisation
It must not be forgotten that aid contributes to establishing and consolidating markets and, above all, that Chinese aid is motivated by political considerations of influence and prestige.
However, in other ways, the transition from anti-Vietnam to anti-China nationalism has been straightforward. Like the Vietnamese, the Chinese are perceived as both an ethnicity and a class. Indeed, one of the most commonly heard complaints from Cambodians is that now the largest investor in Cambodia, the new Chinese residents, do not care about ordinary people. Such sentiment has been brewing for years, as Cambodians complain that they are being priced out of their own country and no longer recognise some places, chiefly Sihanoukville, the coastal hub of Chinese investment, as being Cambodian.
Talk that Sihanoukville is now a 'Chinese colony' is common, and not entirely misplaced. In June of this year, Preah Sihanouk governor Kouch Chamroeun stated that the total amount of overseas investment into the province since 1994 was around $30bn, most of which has come from China. However, the impacts of that investment have been less than ideal. There are also ample examples of Chinese businesses infringing upon land rights and using Cambodian troops to force people off their land; while Chinese investment has in many places out-priced ordinary Cambodians from their cities. Reports suggest apartment rental costs in Sihanoukville increase by as much as seven times between 2015-18. A National Police report earlier this year noted that Chinese nationals commit the most crimes of any foreign group in Cambodia, with 324 criminal cases involving Chinese nationals recorded in 2019, up 15 per cent from the previous year.
Casino on Cambodia/Vietnam border. Image Credit: Flickr/Stephen McGrath
Sim Vireak, a Strategic Advisor of the Asian Vision Institute, a Phnom Penh think tank, and who is not usually known for pessimism, wrote last year in an article for The Diplomat, 'Sihanoukville: A Cambodian City Losing Its ‘Cambodian-ness', (published April 2019) that "for any Cambodian, a visit to the city always sparks a soul-searching exercise". He went on: "The lack of Cambodian-ness is self-evident in Sihanoukville. Signboards are mostly in red, with name prefixes such as 'zhong guo' or 'China'; some signboards feature misspelt Khmer characters that shop-owners seemingly took directly from Google Translate, giving odd meanings to the names".
Second, there exists a perception of recent Chinese arrivals as ‘oppressive capitalists’ (although absent of explicit Marxist language). Here lies the duality of anti-Chinese sentiment. It is not only that the Chinese are foreigners — or 'others' - and tend not to integrate with the local community but, rather, make the local community adapt to them. This is not a particularly new assertion in Southeast Asia; from the 17th century onwards, Southeast Asian elites and European colonials would repeat the racial trope that the Chinese are the 'Jews of Asia'. King Vajiravudh Rama VI of Siam penned a notorious article with this title in 1914. In Cambodia today, though, it is the 'new Chinese' (in contrast to the fully integrated Sino-Khmer population, descendants of immigrants from Guangdong and Fujian) that in such a short space of time have dominated the local economy and pushed out ordinary Cambodians, as the sentiment goes.
In private conversation, it is today common (even prevalent) to hear ordinary Cambodians blame the country’s new Chinese residents for almost every social problem, down to the most basic and far-fetched. They were the reason for the power shortages that hit the country for months last year. A tuk-tuk driver informed one of us that Phnom Penh’s congestion, which has been worsening for years, is the sudden fault of new arrivals from China. Crime is said to be getting worse because of the Chinese presence and hardly a week goes by without the local Cambodian media reporting on 'Chinese behaving badly' in the kingdom, now a regular trope of mainstream journalism – and one that resonates.
Anti-China nationalism post COVID-19
Some analysts reckon that the Cambodian government has quickly grasped popular anger and recognised the need to resolve the issue of anti-China popular nationalism. The banning of online gambling in September last year led to what one of us called ‘The Great Chinese Exodus of 2019' when thousands of Chinese citizens departed the kingdom — although it remains in doubt whether this decision was taken due to domestic concerns or owing to pressure from Beijing.
However, since then other events have somewhat stemmed the tide or at least stalled what last year appeared to be dangerously snowballing anti-China popular sentiment as much of the 'other' against which Cambodian popular nationalism defines itself simply isn’t around at the moment. The country’s tourism sector has been transformed, perhaps without repair, to cater to Chinese visitors, now the largest source of tourism (to Cambodia), with a two-fifths share of the overall number. Over 2 million Chinese tourists visited Cambodia in 2019, an increase of 16 per cent on the previous year.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the tourism industry and while there has been an uptick in business travel from China over the last few months, Cambodia — like the rest of the world — remains essentially closed, with tourism visas no longer even issued by Cambodian embassies and consulates and no anticipated change to that policy any time soon. The return of Chinese residents — one-quarter of the Chinese community in Sihanoukville is estimated to have left since the start of the pandemic — remains relatively slow.
At the same time, capital movement restrictions in China and the Cambodian government's recently strengthened and laudable efforts to prevent money laundering have slowed the influx of Chinese funds. The once-booming construction sector, one of the main contributors to GDP growth, had become overwhelmingly dominated by Chinese money, so much so that last year the World Bank took to making serious warnings. 'The recent surge in FDI inflows [mainly from China] has masked the financial sector's vulnerability caused by prolonged rapid credit growth', stated an economic update paper published in May 2019. It went on: 'Such large foreign capital inflows may not be sustained, especially in a context of increasing global uncertainty and slowdown in China…The drying up of foreign investment in the construction sector could result in a collapse in prices and expose financial sector vulnerabilities'.
COVID-19 makes those questions particularly appropriate to ask, with the Asian Development Bank noting its concerns as to the impacts of a continued slowdown in construction on future growth rates. While the local real estate industry has consistently claimed that all is well, a quick drive around Sihanoukville or Phnom Penh easily demonstrates that many projects have stalled or have been put on hold for the time being.
The all-important question, though, for Cambodia’s future is now quite straightforward: how will popular Cambodian nationalism develop in a post-COVID world? Cambodia’s ties with China are all but certain to continue improving and expanding in a post-pandemic world. In early October, Cambodia signed its first-ever bilateral free-trade agreement — one with China that took less than eight months to negotiate and the terms of which haven’t yet been released. This is expected to lead to an increase in agricultural exports to China and make it easier for Chinese firms to invest in Cambodia. Both sides say the FTA will boost bilateral trade to $10bn by 2023, up from $7.4bn in 2018 (the majority of which is skewed towards China).
It is also most probable that Cambodia’s economic recovery in 2021 will be driven by Chinese investment and trade. In May, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said he was confident Chinese visitors will kickstart Cambodia’s tourism recovery. The future of the construction and property sectors remain uncertain — but it is widely assumed in Phnom Penh that post-pandemic, Chinese investment will continue to drive these sectors. But this reliance on China for Cambodia’s economic recovery is likely to further fuel anti-China sentiment in the country — with pre-COVID-19 patterns of anti-China, nationalist discourse returning and strengthening.
In mid-October, photos emerged of what appeared to be a bus of Chinese tourists being driven from Phnom Penh’s international airport to an intersection in the capital where they were allowed off the vehicle, a violation of the current rules of self-guaranteeing after arrival. Phnom Penh City Hall days later claimed this was a misunderstanding and only a suitcase was being dropped off, but in the meantime, Cambodian social media users saw it as yet another example of rule-breaking by Chinese tourists.
This will put the ruling party in a difficult position. In power since 1979, it has built its legitimacy based on what Max Weber famously termed a ‘eudaemonic’ model, i.e., legitimation through improvement in living standards — rather than through the other two modes defined by Weber: charismatic legitimation and traditional/legal legitimation. In the past, the opposition movement’s espousal of anti-Vietnam sentiment did little to prevent the ruling party from carrying out its economic program.
Although still common in society, by the late 1990s anti-Vietnam sentiment lacked much bite as Vietnam was no longer the largest investor or trading partner of Cambodia and had become a bit player in its foreign policy considerations. The Cambodian government’s closer alliance with Beijing, a geopolitical opponent of Hanoi, in the 2000s made anti-Vietnam sentiment even more lacking in foundation. As a result, those obsessed with the Vietnam 'threat' were left tilting at windmills, such as the issue of border demarcations, while similar border disputes with Laos attract hardly any opprobrium from the Cambodian public.
However, today the Cambodian government knows that if it is to ensure the consistent economic growth necessary to maintain legitimacy, especially in a post-Covid world, it has to rely on Chinese aid, investment, and trade - and, indeed, to privilege Chinese investors lest they take their money to other Southeast Asian states also desperate for Chinese capital. But this will only further fuel anti-China sentiment among ordinary Cambodians. As such, the ruling CPP will find itself with a novel problem: How to balance its nationalist credentials with the legitimacy it derives from a growing economy? It will not be easy, particularly as the opposition movement is increasingly eager to portray the ruling party as representing Beijing’s interests, rather than Cambodia's.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biographies
David Hutt is a political journalist who was based in Cambodia between 2014-2019. He is Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat, a contributor and columnist at Asia Times, and writes regularly for Foreign Policy, Nikkei Asia, World Politics Review and the Economic Intelligence Unit.
Bradley J. Murg, PhD is Senior Advisor and Distinguished Senior Research Fellow at the Cambodia Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) and Senior Academic Advisor at Future Forum, an independent think tank in Phnom Penh.