Cambodia’s recent withdrawal from Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), a cross-border development cooperation scheme with Laos and Vietnam, is a cause for concern. The four northeastern Cambodian provinces affected are among the poorest regions in the whole of Southeast Asia. In general, the development of peripheral regions anywhere in the world is problematic if there are no significant cross-border value chains and trade relations. It is therefore understandable that Ratanakkiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie, and Stung Treng provinces require special economic policy initiatives in order keep pace with the rest of Cambodia. The Cambodian government’s decision to withdraw from the CLV-DTA in September, after weeks of public protests against it, will certainly be to these provinces’ disadvantage.
It didn’t have to come to this. Any government that has to make unpopular decisions can face criticism and rejection by a majority or vocal minority of the population. Capable governments are then in a position to explain their decisions. They can do this in a rational way, for example by demonstrating the prospective cost-benefit advantages of a project, but they also need to account for emotion and public sentiment. In Cambodian society, views of Vietnam are characterized by fervent dislike based on the memory of Vietnamese expansion in recent centuries as well as fears of loss and economic disadvantage. And precisely because it is more emotionally than rationally founded, no other political issue in Cambodia harbors greater potential for outrage than its relationship with Vietnam.
In Cambodia, this situation is aggravated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP)’s lack of understanding of public persuasion. This is because, in the regime’s logic, members of parliament and government officials are accountable not to the people, but to the country’s top leadership.
The protest against the CLV-DTA began on July 23 when four activists in Siem Reap critically discussed the cooperation agreement in a live video online. Later that day, they were arrested by the police.
In the weeks following, the government was either unwilling or unable to publicly explain the benefits of cross-border cooperation with Laos and Vietnam. There were neither government statements in the National Assembly followed by a broad debate, nor attempts to convince people at the grassroots level of the agreement’s benefits. Instead, the government cracked down hard on those protesting the agreement; it has arrested more than 90 protesters since July, only later to reverse course and do exactly what those protesters were calling for: to withdraw from the agreement. I doubt whether there is a sophisticated strategy behind this concession to popular anger, which will certainly not improve perceptions of Cambodia’s reliability as a foreign partner.
Cambodia’s case shows once again the great advantages that arise from the processes of liberal democracies. After all, only those who fear losing power through being voted out of office will spend time and energy publicly promoting their positions and decisions. By contrast, autocratic regimes are lulled into a false sense of security that they can spare themselves this effort. Accordingly, the handling of the protests against the CLV-DTA is evidence of overburdening and overreaction, both in the decision to crack down and the decision to pull out of the agreement.
However, this case is even more serious as it touches on unresolved nationalist fears about Vietnamese encroachments and influence. Once again, it shows how much the Cambodian national consciousness is nourished by Khmer ethno-nationalism with a strong current of anti-Vietnamese resentment.
I remember a conversation around ten years ago with a leading member of parliament from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was dissolved in 2017. When asked whether the growing Chinese influence in Cambodia was better than Vietnamese influence, she replied: “Of course it is. Because the Chinese are not our neighbors.” This referred to the traditional perception of neighborly relations of mainland Southeast Asia, which culminates in the saying “My neighbor is my enemy. My neighbor’s neighbor is my friend.” Even today, this describes quite accurately the way in which many Cambodians view their much larger eastern neighbor.
In this respect, the most recent point of reference is the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, during which time Hanoi installed the CPP in power. In this unequal power constellation in the 1980s, Hun Sen, who ruled as prime minister between 1985 and 2023, had no choice but to invoke friendship between Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam as a state doctrine. Apart from rhetorical assurances, there is not much left of this today. Nevertheless, it is to the great credit of Hun Sen, now the president of the Senate, that anti-Vietnamese chauvinism, which reached its peak during the Khmer Rouge genocide against the ethnic Vietnamese between 1975 and 1979, has been largely contained in Cambodia.
It was therefore no surprise that the question of Vietnam has been the political Achilles’ heel of both Hun Sen and the CPP, and a frequent line of attack for their opponents. The CNRP’s co-founder and one-time leader Sam Rainsy, who has been living abroad for the past nine years due to the threat of prison sentences in Cambodia, seemingly initiated the discussion about the CLV-DTA on July 20 in his party’s online news portals, which fueled protests by overseas Cambodian communities in a number of countries. A subsequent plan to hold a protest in Phnom Penh in August was what prompted the Cambodian government’s fierce crackdown.
That such a line of attack remains attractive to the CPP’s opponents points to the fact that Cambodian nationalism continues to define itself predominantly through demarcation, above all from Vietnam. What is missing is a contemporary positive connotation of Cambodian national consciousness. Ethnic homogeneity, customs, religion, and the symbol of Angkor are hardly enough in the 21st century. What is needed is a constructive examination of such questions as what it actually means for the people in the country to be a nation; what values and motives bring people together; what this in turn means for identity, community, public spirit, and overall social cooperation and solidarity. This obviously has significant implications for the estimated 400,000 to 750,000 ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia – usually stateless and socially marginalized – for whom any resurgence of xenophobic resentment has historically been dangerous.
These are all questions that have been ignored for years, even though the civil war has long since ended. And in this vacuum of ideas, maybe it is comprehensible that many Cambodians are grasping at an emotional straw to quench their national thirst by rejecting everything Vietnamese.
Certainly, there is little likelihood that this overdue debate about Cambodian nationhood and identity can be conducted openly. In the current political dispensation, the impetus for such a discussion can probably only come from the regime itself. In the past, Hun Sen has missed several opportunities. While in 2003 he allowed an angry mob to storm and pillage the Thai embassy, first conjuring up and then recognizing the dangers of stirring up nationalist sentiment, he took a much more cautious approach in the later border conflict. The armed clashes that took place in 2010 and 2011 led to a wave of patriotism in Cambodia that had not been seen for decades, but which quickly died down again afterwards.
The potential of other domestic and foreign policy successes in recent years – e.g. the border agreement with Vietnam, the largely successful management during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, most recently, the organization of the Southeast Asian Games – also remained untapped. Similarly, King Norodom Sihamoni’s attempts to fill this void as the personified symbol of national unity and community are rather seldom.
Hence, Cambodian nationalism will likely continue to feed on rejection and segregation. The destructive danger behind this should by no means be underestimated by the regime, as the associated challenges could eventually pose threats to its hold on power. Hun Sen has at least proven in the past that, unlike many populist autocrats around the world, he is not willing to play on xenophobic resentment. However, this is hardly surprising given that the Vietnamese were his major ally for three decades.
Times have since changed, and China has long since become Cambodia’s most important partner. As a result, Cambodia has become increasingly self-confident in its dealings with Vietnam, as demonstrated by the start of construction of the Funan Techo Canal in August and the termination of the CLV-DTA the following month. The CPP government’s reversion to old forms of anti-Vietnamese politics, however gradual, will likely pose further challenges to the bilateral relationship in the years to come.