The Diplomat | Author
David Whitehouse
David Whitehouse, PhD, is a freelance journalist in Paris.
David Whitehouse, PhD, is a freelance journalist in Paris who worked as an editor at Bloomberg News for 17 years. He is the author of two books on Rwanda and is now editor-at-large at The Africa Report in Paris. He also co-authored the autobiography of Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy published in 2013, and publishes a Substack newsletter on microfinance and development.
September 02, 2024
Cambodia’s CLV-DTA Crackdown Shows Vietnam Is Still the Elephant in the Room
By David Whitehouse
Phnom Penh is acutely sensitive to any suggestion that the country is ceding land and sovereignty to its eastern neighbor.
August 05, 2024
Cambodian Cyber-Slavery Ends Age of Innocence for Microfinance Investors
By David Whitehouse
The country's epidemic of online scam operations testifies to a lack of state capacity that should have been a red flag for MFI boosters.
May 06, 2024
Xi Jinping Visit Gives France’s Macron Chance to Raise China’s Uyghur ‘Genocide’
By David Whitehouse
A leading Uyghur diaspora activist says that Paris should adopt robust sanctions such as those adopted in the United States in recent years.
April 10, 2024
Cambodia’s Cyber-Slavery Trafficking Denials Reflect Official Complicity, Experts Say
By David Whitehouse
Despite growing evidence that Cambodia has become a source of industrial-scale cyber-scams, the authorities continue to downplay the extent of the problem.
February 27, 2024
The Hereditary Dictatorships of North Korea, Cambodia Have Shared Soviet Roots
By David Whitehouse
Both nations traveled a similar path from Soviet patronage to personalist autocracy.
February 16, 2024
US Sanctions and Rallying Around the Flag in North Korea and Cambodia
By David Whitehouse
Critics of economic sanctions claim that they help authoritarian governments consolidate their power, but this is based on a reductive view of statehood.
January 24, 2024
Cambodia Microfinance Association Findings Mark Retreat From Poverty Reduction Claims
By David Whitehouse
The country's recent microcredit boom has highlighted the wide gap between the theory of microfinance and its reality.
November 08, 2023
An Open Letter to Cambodia’s Hun Manet About His PhD Thesis
By David Whitehouse
Despite repeated requests, Bristol University has refused to release the Cambodian leader's doctoral thesis in economics.
September 11, 2023
In Search of Hun Manet’s Bristol University PhD Thesis
By David Whitehouse
In 2009, Cambodia's new prime minister was awarded a doctorate in economics – but it is nearly impossible to access his thesis.
September 05, 2023
Rising Cambodia Microfinance NPLs Signal Forced Land Sales, Child Labor
By David Whitehouse
The rise in non-performing loans only hints at the heavy burden of debt borne by tens of thousands of rural Cambodians.
July 25, 2023
Ex-Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan Joins the Party as Cambodian Election Observer
By David Whitehouse
The former leader’s presence is part of a longer trend of election “observers” who apply a stamp of approval to flawed electoral processes.
June 27, 2023
Cambodian Microfinance’s High Repayment Rates Are Built on Misery, Research Finds
By David Whitehouse
Boosters of microfinance claim that it can rescue people from rapacious informal lenders. That’s not the case in Cambodia.
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