China has offered Cambodia a grant package worth 300 million yuan ($44 million) to support railway construction as the two communist-ruled nations seek to build a “diamond cooperation framework” in six areas.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced the grant package after a Feb. 11 meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen, who was on a three-day official visit to China, the National Television of Cambodia reported.
“Both sides look forward to early railway connection between Cambodia and China—Laos—Thailand railway,” the statement reads. It didn’t elaborate on the railway projects and the period of construction.
‘One China’ Policy
In the joint statement, Hun Sen reaffirmed Cambodia’s “resolute adherence” to the “One China” policy and said that he opposes “any attempt to interfere in China’s internal affairs or to block and contain China under the subterfuge of Taiwan.”He vowed that “Cambodia will not develop any form of official relations with Taiwan,” a self-governed island that the CCP considers to be a renegade province that must be reunified with the mainland by all means necessary.
“Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory as well as China’s internal affair, which brooks no interference from any external forces,” the statement reads.
The two leaders also called for joint efforts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to maintain stability in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been accused of asserting its territorial claims in an aggressive manner due to its illegal maritime activities.
“Any attempt to use the South China Sea issue to undermine regional peace, stability, and trust is counterproductive and should be avoided,” the leaders said.
CCP’s Influence in Cambodia
More than 40 percent of Cambodia’s $10 billion in foreign debt is owed to China, although Cambodia hasn’t asked Beijing to restructure that burden, unlike other countries such as Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Ethiopia, which have taken out massive Chinese loans.
There’s growing international concern about China’s ties with Cambodia, one of the earliest supporters of the BRI.Launched in 2013, the BRI is China’s flagship project to build up geopolitical influence via investments across Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
This could “result in Cambodia’s falling into the so-called debt trap,” Thayer said. “Chinese companies involved in providing infrastructure take possession of the infrastructure. This could hypothetically mean Chinese ownership of Cambodian ports and even airports.”
Beijing has invested in numerous BRI infrastructure projects in Cambodia, such as an expressway linking the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, a new international airport at the resort town of Siem Reap, and a hydropower plant in Stung Treng Province.
Sihanoukville sits facing the Gulf of Thailand and is in close proximity to the South China Sea. In Sihanoukville, Chinese money has flooded in to build resorts, casinos, and skyscrapers.
“China is Cambodia’s largest trade partner, but this relationship is heavily skewed in China’s favor,” the embassy wrote.
The post included a graph showing that Cambodia imported $5.286 billion worth of goods from China in 2017 while exporting $753 million to China in the same year and that Cambodia enjoyed a trade surplus of about $2.67 billion with the United States in the same year.
The trade imbalance with China does “not support jobs or industry in the same way Cambodia’s trade relationship with the United States or European Union does,” the embassy said in the post.
“This is just one more way Cambodia has shifted from a more balanced and diverse economic approach to one more dependent on China.”
“The CICPEC has the potential to erode the current security architecture in the region, allowing China to use its economic leverage to accumulate inordinate geopolitical power in its immediate neighborhood,” the paper stated.
