Cambodia needs to restore balance in ties with US, China

THE influence of the United States in South-east Asia is decreasing, with Cambodia turning away from Washington because of its stinginess and interventionist policies to embrace the more generous and accommodative Beijing. The US is losing strategic space in the region because the Philippines is also distancing itself from Washington and allying with Beijing.

Cambodia has been maintaining a facade of balancing relations with the two major global powers, the US and China, even as it has been deepening its alliance with the latter, while its relations with the former have lacked substance. It is now publicly tilting the scales in a risky shift towards China, while scrapping US military aid and joint exercises, preferring joint exercises with the Chinese military instead.

With these bold moves, Cambodia has decided that its prosperity lies not with the US, which is anyway an insignificant provider of aid and investment, but with its major investor, China. In April, Phnom Penh ended a US military project that had run for nine years, asking the US Navy Mobile Construction Battalion that was conducting community service projects to leave. Cambodia also cancelled joint military exercises with the US earlier this year.