Cambodia Demolishes US-built Naval Facility

January 6, 2021 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - For the second time, Cambodia has demolished a US-constructed naval facility at Ream Naval Base, operated by the Royal Cambodian Navy. 

The facility, built in 2017, was a relatively small boat maintenance building. 

US State Department-funded media outlet Voice of America in an article titled, "Cambodia Demolishes Second U.S.-Built Facility at Ream Naval Base," would note: 

The Cambodian defense minister on Tuesday said that another United States-built facility at the Ream Naval Base had been demolished recently, confirming satellite images released by a think-tank early this week.

The article also noted: 

The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh on Tuesday expressed its displeasure at the demolition of facilities it had funded at the Ream Naval Base.

“We are disappointed that Cambodian military authorities have demolished another maritime security facility funded by the United States, without notification or explanation,” said U.S. Embassy spokesperson Chad Roedemeier in an email.

US media and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who first broke the story have speculated that the move was made in preparations for Chinese-built facilities to take their place, though Cambodia itself has so far denied this. 

Inroads by China in Cambodia, particularly if they were military in nature, would further check US attempts to reassert itself in the Indo-Pacific region. It would also provide China a strategic location to protect the passage of vessels engaged in commerce (mainly carrying Chinese-made goods abroad and raw materials back home) especially if progress is made regarding nearby Thailand and the much-discussed Kra Canal or an alternative land bridge that would allow ships to bypass the lengthy trip around Singapore and through the Malacca Strait more than 1,000 km to the south.  

Explaining Cambodia's Undeniable Tilt Toward Beijing 

Whether or not Cambodia replaces US facilities with those built by China, one thing cannot be denied and that's the hard pivot from West to East Cambodia has made in recent years. 

The expanding ties between Cambodia and China have only been spurred further by coercive strategies adopted by Washington in an attempt to halt or reverse this trend. Similar pressure on Cambodia from the European Union has prompted statements from Phnom Penh openly vowing to replace any gaps in trade with further and closer ties with China. 

The simmering tensions are best illustrated by an episode in late 2019 mentioned in a Reuters article titled, "Cambodian PM says China ready to help if EU imposes sanctions," which stated:

China will help Cambodia if the European Union (EU) withdraws special market access over its rights record, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday as he announced a 600 million yuan ($89 million) Chinese aid package for his military.

More recently, the EU has continued attaching political obligations to economic relations with Cambodia, only further encouraging greater ties between it and nearby China. 

DW in an article titled, "EU to slap sanctions on Cambodia over human rights," would claim: 

The EU "will not stand and watch as democracy is eroded," the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrel said while announcing trade sanctions on Cambodia. The Asian country has been ruled by strongman Hun Sen for 35 years.

The article cites Kem Sokha and his disbanded political party as one key issue the West is pressuring Cambodia over. But what is not mentioned is the extensive US and European support that has created and directed Kem Sokha's opposition party over the years, constituting foreign interference in Cambodia's internal affairs, a matter Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen addressed directly, as the article noted: 

The nation's leader Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, previously said that the country would "not bow its head" to EU criticism. He also said that it was more important to maintain independence and sovereignty than retaining trade privileges.

While both the US and EU have insisted this pressure is owed to "human rights concerns," in reality the West has been funding and supporting opposition figures like Kem Sokha within Cambodia for decades in the hope of eventually ousting the current government in Phnom Penh headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and replacing it with a pro-Western regime. 

Snowballing Effect of Multipolarism 

China's offer of economic trade, investment, military hardware and infrastructure development absent of Western-style political interference has shifted the calculus in Phnom Penh increasingly in favour of its continuous shift from West to East. 

What is working in Cambodia's favour is the fact that China is rising economically both in the region and around the globe. At the same time, the West, who insists on adhering to its dated and coercive brand of foreign policy and international relations, is fading economically and even militarily. 

When nations like Cambodia express upon the global stage indifference to Western threats of sanctions and appear able or even willing to replace trade gaps left by Western stubbornness and coercion with greater trade with China, it sends a signal to other nations in the region and around the world that tolerating such stubbornness and coercion is no longer necessary. 

As smaller nations once fearful of Western pressure and even retaliation begin slipping out from under the shadow of Washington's once formidable global hegemony, the process of transforming the world from a Western-dominated unipolar order to a more multipolar world will only accelerate further. 

Cambodia's decision to knock down a rather simple structure shouldn't have been a news item in the West, but apparently the realization of just how much the US has alienated the region may finally be beginning to sink in. 

What remains to be seen is if the US and its European allies can recognize the global tidal changes taking place and can find a constructive place within this new world to work alongside other nations rather than insisting on ruling above them all, a prospect all but entirely relegated to history.  

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

References: 

VOA - Cambodia Demolishes Second U.S.-Built Facility at Ream Naval Base:
https://www.voacambodia.com/a/cambodia-demolishes-second-us-built-facility-at-ream-naval-base-/5655162.html
Reuters - Cambodian PM says China ready to help if EU imposes sanctions:
https://br.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-china-idUSKCN1S50N7
DW - EU to slap sanctions on Cambodia over human rights: 
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-slap-sanctions-on-cambodia-over-human-rights/a-52358123

EU Cries "Human Rights" as Cambodia Turns to China

August 18, 2020 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - What should the world make of the West's attempts to pressure the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia on humanitarian grounds when the West is guilty of the worst (and still ongoing) abuses of the 21st century? 

Wikipedia provides a quick and simple definition of the psychological concept of projection, stating: a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. 

A recent "op-ed" in the Bangkok Post which reads more like a paid-placement for the US and European-funded front, Human Rights Watch and its sponsors, was clearly an extreme exercise in projection.

The op-ed would claim:

"The European Union should add this outrage to the long list of rights abuses that need to be resolved in negotiations over 'Everything But Arms' (EBA) trade preferences," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of HRW.

Under the EBA scheme, Cambodian exports get tariff-free access to the EU market. In February, the EU announced plans to suspend access for about 20% of Cambodian goods, citing democratic and human rights setbacks in recent years. The EU is implementing a "phased approach", which could see the EBA status fully revoked if Phnom Penh fails to restore democratic rights.

 The op-ed concludes by claiming:

However, Cambodia is seemingly already looking for ways to offset financial losses caused by a potential full EBA withdrawal. The country is looking to partner with China on a free trade agreement (FTA). "This very huge [Chinese] market access enables Cambodia to diversify its products and markets and reduce over-reliance on a few trading partners, ie, Europe, US and Canada, who traditionally trade with Cambodia on a concessional basis such as EBA," Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said.

Apparently, the CPP is willing to risk a full EBA withdrawal as long as it has options. Or maybe Mr Hun Sen and the CPP simply can't be bothered to uphold Western standards of human rights.

Western standards of human rights?

Are these the same standards that enables the United States and United Kingdom to provide weapons, intelligence and other forms of military support for the Saudi government in its ongoing war with neighbouring Yemen? The UN has stated that this conflict is in fact the world's worst humanitarian crisis. And it is a crisis that is only possibly with the US and Europe's complicity.

How about the Western standards of human rights that allow, unopposed, the continued military presence of the United States in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan?

Iraq's elected representatives went as far as voting to demand US forces withdraw, demands that were blatantly ignored by Washington who, among other lies, insisted its involvement in Iraq was to foster democracy.

Today and every day since the 2003 invasion, the US tramples Iraq's collective democratic and human rights by ignoring the will of the Iraqi people within their own borders and regarding their own sovereign affairs by maintaining a military occupation predicated entirely on false premises.

Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch has little to say about any of this while insisting nations targeted by the West fall into line behind whatever "Western standards of human rights" actually are.

These are standards that are surely nothing demonstrated or observed by or within the West itself and seem more like standards imposed on others as an excuse for what could otherwise be best described as naked coercion. Phil Robertson and organisations like Human Rights Watch appear then to be political tools used to deny targeted nations basic dignity, sovereignty and human rights, not uphold any of the above.

The West Really Wants to Cry "China" 

Let's take a look at that op-ed again. It claims:

 "This very huge [Chinese] market access enables Cambodia to diversify its products and markets and reduce over-reliance on a few trading partners, ie, Europe, US and Canada, who traditionally trade with Cambodia on a concessional basis such as EBA," Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said.

Apparently, the CPP is willing to risk a full EBA withdrawal as long as it has options. Or maybe Mr Hun Sen and the CPP simply can't be bothered to uphold Western standards of human rights.

And there it is. It is Cambodia's pivot to China that has the EU and its partners across the Atlantic truly upset. That and the fact that having failed to overthrow Cambodia's government after years of trying, the West has very little to offer Cambodia to pivot back in its direction.


Cambodia's pivot toward China isn't recent. It, along with much of Southeast Asia, has been unfolding over the past two decades and has accelerated in the last 10 years to a point where it has visibly transformed the region as well as visibly reduced the West's influence in Asia-Pacific as a result.

China is offering nations like Cambodia and its neighbours Laos and Thailand economic opportunities, major infrastructure projects, military cooperation and political ties the West simply cannot provide any attractive alternative to.

China is building a high-speed rail network through Southeast Asia. The US and its European partners have no ability to built such a network in the region, with the US having not a single kilometer of high-speed rail within even its own borders.

China's massive manufacturing base means that Southeast Asian nations find it their largest import partners. And now with China's massive domestic markets risen out of poverty, China is many of these nation's largest export partners as well.

This also translates into larger numbers of tourists from China travelling across Southeast Asia and like many nations in the region, China provides the vast majority of visitors travelling to Cambodia annually.

China's production of cheap but effective arms has become increasingly popular in Southeast Asia with nations like Cambodia already long-time customers and even neighbours like Thailand replacing their inventory of aging US weapons with new Chinese systems.

Finally, China's economic rise means greater foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region. China is easily Cambodia's largest investor.

When Cambodia's own government expresses little concern over Europe's tantrum and threats, it is hardly a bluff. Cambodia not only has options, it has better options.

Diversification is important for any economy and one of the main reasons nations in the region still strive to preserve business ties with the West, but the West by overplaying a weak hand and resorting to coercion and even subversion, leave these nations with little incentive to continue trying.

The US and its European partners, by being overly dependent on rackets and coercion dishonestly disguised as "human rights" and "democracy" promotion have squandered opportunities that should have instead been exploited through doing actual and relatively honest business in Southeast Asia.

By assuming the West could simply remove governments in the region who refused to give up better ties with nations like China and remain underfoot within Washington, London and Brussels' "international order," they have left themselves with no other tools at a time when regime change (or even the threat of regime change) is no longer as effective as it once was.

Cambodia is an extreme example others in Southeast Asia may (albeit to a lesser degree) follow if the West continues to cling to notions of primacy over the region rather than shifting to genuine and mutually beneficial partnerships with it.

Synergies between Cambodia and other nations in Southeast Asia likewise targeted by pressure from the West to roll back ties with China based on disingenuous concerns over "human rights" and "democracy" will only compound the West's declining influence in the region. Clearly the US and EU need a new strategy to engage with not only Southeast Asia but with the world at large.

Multipolarism hasn't exclusively benefited China and offers the West possibly the best model to reform its relationship with a world it has for too long attempted to stand above rather than work within and alongside. For centuries Western hubris was matched by its economic and military superiority. Today, with just hubris alone, it is building resentment, not empire and a corner it is painting itself into at an alarming rate.

The EU's threats were meant to make Cambodia fear isolation. Yet by wielding this brand of antiquated geopolitics it has only succeeded in placing Cambodia further in China's orbit and isolating itself in the process.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US Complains as Cambodia Pivots Toward China

March 5, 2020 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - US State Department-funded front "Radio Free Asia" (RFA) recently complained about plans to proceed with joint Chinese-Cambodian military exercises despite the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. 

According to Khmer Times, this year's joint exercises will include up to 200 Chinese personnel and over 2,000 personnel from Cambodia. According to the article the exercises will also include "the use of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, mortar and helicopter gun ships." 

Cambodia has dismissed concerns over holding the exercises amid the outbreak noting the relatively small impact the virus' spread has had on the nation. Additionally, it is unlikely China will not exercise extreme caution when selecting and screening military personnel sent to participate in the exercises later this year. 

The citing of the virus is merely the US taking a political shot at both China and Cambodia and by doing so reminding both nations of the importance of establishing significant and enduring alternatives to the current but waning US-led "international order." 

US Complains About Growing Chinese-Cambodian Ties 

In an RFA article titled, "Joint Cambodia-China ‘Golden Dragon’ Military Drills to Proceed, Despite Threat of Coronavirus," the US front complained:

Cambodia and China have no plans to cancel their fourth annual joint “Golden Dragon” military exercise later this month, despite the threat of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Tea Banh said Monday.

The article also openly complained about declining Western-Cambodian ties and how they reflected China's growing influence in the region. RFA would claim:

This year’s exercises mark an expansion over those in 2019, when 250 Chinese and 2,500 Cambodian military personnel took part in drills over 15 days at the Chum Kiri Military Shooting Range Training Field in Chum Kiri district.

They were the third and largest joint Cambodia-China military drills to be held on Cambodian soil since Cambodia’s Defense Ministry abruptly suspended annual “Angkor Sentinel” joint exercises with the U.S. military and abandoned counter-terrorism training exercises with the Australian military in 2017.

Joint exercises with Western nations were never reestablished after 2017, a sign of Washington's terminal decline in the region.

Washington's More of the Same Didn't and Won't Work 

Rather than addressing Cambodia's concerns over overreaching Western influence, meddling and subversion within Cambodia's internal political affairs, the West (and the US in particular) has instead doubled down on meddling.

This too was mentioned in the RFA article, which claimed:

Meanwhile, Western influence in Cambodia is on the decline amid criticism of Hun Sen and the CPP over restrictions on democracy in the lead up to and aftermath of the ballot.

The U.S. has since announced visa bans on individuals seen as limiting democracy in the country, as part of a series of measures aimed at pressuring Cambodia to reverse course, and the European Union in mid-February announced plans to suspend tariff-free access to its market under the “Everything But Arms” (EBA) scheme for around one-fifth of Cambodia’s exports, citing rollbacks on human rights. 

In reality, there has been no "rollback on human rights" in Cambodia, but merely a crackdown on openly Western-backed and funded sedition in the form of political opposition parties, many of which are literally run out of Washington D.C. and led by political figures hiding abroad from criminal charges and jail sentences.

It is a pattern repeated all across Southeast Asia and beyond, where the US and its European partners use a combination of economic and political coercion to manipulate and control developing nations, but a pattern that has worn thin among the nations targeted.

Targeted nations have increasingly taken advantage of emerging multipolarism and the ability to build alternative ties with nations like China and Russia who not only provide an alternative to Western ties and access to markets, but are increasingly providing better opportunities than the West can, even under the most ideal conditions.


While the West's brand of meddling will continue to have an impact on Cambodia, Cambodia and other nations in the region are increasingly establishing permanent alternatives in a process that will ultimately and likewise permanently render Western tactics impotent and the shareholders wielding them increasingly isolated.

Growing political, economic and military ties between China and Cambodia are permanently replacing US primacy over the region. Unless the US finds a more constructive and honest way of engaging with the region, this process will continue, and amid this process, contributing to a much wider, global decline of US power and influence.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US Propaganda Reorganises in Cambodia

January 29, 2020 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America recently noted that its networks in the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia are reorganising, though no in such straightforward terms.

VOA's article, "Journalists Form A New Press Association, Plan to Protect At Risk Reporters," claims:

The development comes amid an ongoing press crackdown by the government that has seen the shuttering of independent news organizations and radio stations in the country.

The article then obliquely mentions that the "at risk reporters" include Radio Free Asia employees; Radio Free Asia being part of the US State Department's media presence inside Cambodia and across the rest of Asia.

Only until the very last paragraph of the article does VOA admit who the founding members of the new association, The Cambodian Journalists Alliance (CamboJa), are, admitting:

CamboJA’s fifteen founding members consist of current or former journalists from six news outlets, including Voice of Democracy, The Cambodia Daily, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, as well as freelance journalists.

In other words, CamboJa is merely the US State Department reorganising its interference within Cambodia under the pretense of upholding media freedom.

US-Funded and Directed Media Augments US-Backed Opposition 

Far from impartially and objectively reporting any actual news, the members of CamboJa serve merely as the public relations arm of Cambodia's US-backed opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

CNRP's senior leadership includes Kem Sokha who himself openly admitted he served as a proxy for US interests who ran his opposition party practically from top to bottom.

The Phnom Penh Post in an article titled, "Kem Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear," would go over the many admissions made by Kem Sokha: 

Sokha says he has visited the US at the government’s request every year since 1993 to learn about the “democratisation process” and that “they decided” he should step aside from politics to create change in Cambodia.

“They said if we want to change the leadership, we cannot fight the top. Before changing the top level, we need to uproot the lower one. We need to change the lower level first. It is a political strategy in a democratic country,” he said.

Regarding US assistance, Kem Sokha would reveal:

“And, the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can changed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes.

“You know Milosevic had a huge numbers of tanks. But they changed things by using this strategy, and they take this experience for me to implement in Cambodia. But no one knew about this.”

“However, since we are now reaching at this stage, today I must tell you about this strategy. We will have more to continue and we will succeed.”

Kem Sokha would elaborate even further, claiming:

“I do not do anything at my own will. Their experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.”

Kem Sokha's daughter, Kem Monovithya, has also openly worked with the US to seek the overthrow of the Cambodian government.

When Cambodia began its crackdown on both CNRP and the US-funded organisations supporting it, the US threatened sanctions and other punitive measures. Kem Monovithya would play a central role in promoting these punitive measures in Washington. 

The Phonom Post in a December 2017 article titled, "US says more sanctions on table in response to political crackdown," would claim:

...in Washington, a panel of “witnesses” convened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee – including Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya – called for additional action in response to the political crackdown. In a statement, Monovithya urged targeted financial sanctions against government officials responsible for undermining democracy. She also called on the US to suspend “any and all assistance for the central Cambodian Government”, while “continuing democracy assistance programs for civil society, particularly those engaged in election-related matters”.

Like her farther, Kem Monovithya's collaboration with the US government goes back much further. The Washington Post in a 2006 article titled, "While in U.S., Cambodians Get a Lesson on Rights From Home," would first admit:

Kem Sokha, a former Cambodian senator and official, heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, which is supported by U.S. government funds. The center has held public forums to hear complaints about conditions in Cambodia.

Regarding Kem Monovithya herself, the Washington Post would note:

Monovitha Kem, a business school graduate and aspiring lawyer, said she would lobby U.S. and international institutions to fight Hun Sen's decision. 

"I would like to see the charges dropped not just for my father, but for all other activists," she said in an interview Monday. "I hope they will amend the defamation law." 

Monovitha Kem has met with officials at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development and major human rights groups.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) are both subsidiaries of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, together with the US government itself, have supported myriad subversive activities within Cambodia for years.

This includes a number of organisations cited in a May 2018 Washington Post article attempting to deny claims of US meddling by citing almost exclusively US-funded fronts operating in Cambodia.

This includes Licadho, which is funded by both the UK government and the US via USAID. It also includes Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, both of which are funded by the US government and overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors chaired by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo himself. There is also the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, funded by NED subsidiaries Freedom House and IRI as well as the British Embassy and convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society Foundation.For years the US has interfered in Cambodia's internal political affairs doing so under the guise of promoting democracy and protecting freedom of the press while in actuality undermining the foundations of both.

A democracy by definition includes the process of self-determination. Cambodia's opposition represents an agenda determined an ocean away in Washington. Nothing the Cambodian opposition or the US-funded media that augments its efforts can be described as "democratic."

US Interference is Aimed at Cambodia's Ties with China 

Attempts by the US to assist Cambodia's opposition in creating instability in Cambodia is rooted in Cambodia's current government's growing relationship with Beijing and its obstinate refusal to heed US demands regarding Washington's various agendas in Asia including sanctions aimed at Chinese firms and US efforts to create conflict over the South China Sea.

The US hopes to either remove the current government from power or exert enough pressure on it to exact concessions from it regarding Washington's struggle with Beijing for power and influence across Asia.

Understanding the true motivations driving Washington's interference in Cambodia and that they are merely hidden behind pretexts such as "democracy promotion" and protecting a "free press," helps disarm Washington of still potent political tools used to menace nations around the globe. Exposing and foiling US interference in Cambodia today will help blunt the effectiveness of similar US tactics when it targets others tomorrow.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Asia Unites Against US Coup Attempt

December 6, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The nations of Southeast Asia have united in efforts to prevent a US-backed coup aimed at fellow-Southeast Asian state Cambodia.

Through a combination of travel bans and detentions across the region in late October and early November, Southeast Asia may have thwarted attempts by Washington-backed opposition front, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), from "returning" from its US and European exile to Cambodia where it sought to stir up unrest and sow instability.

The US seeks to disrupt, divide and even destroy the growing list of nations in Asia building ties with Beijing at the expense of Washington's fading primacy over the Asia-Pacific region.

Cambodia is among the staunchest of Beijing's allies in Southeast Asia.

Under the Radar 

With multiple US wars raging across the globe, Washington's ongoing trade war with China and Russophobic hysteria paralysing America's domestic political landscape, the rarely-mentioned nation of Cambodia and its political affairs couldn't be further from the global public's attention.

Using this obscurity as cover, the US began low-key preparations ahead of what the US had hoped would end in much more widely reported protests, instability and, if other nations suffering US regime change efforts is anything to go by, extensive violence.

Cambodia's ambassador (left) confronts CNRP deputy leader Mu Sochua (right) during a press conference organised by the Western media in Indonesia shortly before Sochua's detainment in neighbouring Malaysia. US-EU backed Indonesian "activist" Darmawan who hosted the conference, sits centre looking on.  

While these preparations were promoted by Western media organisations operating in Southeast Asia, they collectively omitted mention of US involvement or the much wider implications of the US organising what was essentially a coup attempt in Cambodia.

Preparations included moving CNRP members from their US and European homes-in-exile to neighbouring Southeast Asian states. There, Western media organisations and US-European funded fronts posing as rights organisations conducted conferences and published articles promoting their planned "return" to Cambodia.

Had the US succeeded in triggering chaos in Cambodia, it would have fed synergistically into ongoing US-fomented instability in Hong Kong, China as well as opened the door to other US-funded groups across Southeast Asia eager to engage in political unrest.

Thai political opposition party "Future Forward," for example, appears to have been planning unrest timed to coincide with CNRP's return to Cambodia.

Asia Unites Against US Coup Attempt 

However, these preparations appear to have been in vain.

In late October Thailand had denied CNRP deputy leader Mu Sochua entry into their territory where she had sought to then travel onward into Cambodia.

Al Jazeera would report in their article, "Questions over Rainsy's Cambodia return after deputy turned back," that:

The deputy leader of Cambodia’s opposition party has been denied entry to Thailand, casting doubt on party leader Sam Rainsy’s pledge to return from exile in Paris in early November. 

Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Vice-President Mu Sochua was denied entry in Bangkok on October 20 and sent back to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. From there, she headed to the United States, where she is also a citizen.

The article also notes that:

CNRP President Kem Sokha was arrested for treason in September 2017, and Sochua fled the country the following month. By November the party was dissolved entirely, allowing long-time Prime Minister Hun Sen to claim all 125 parliament seats in last year’s election.

Souchua would eventually be detained in Malaysia as she attempted to proceed onward to Cambodia.

Thailand would next bar CNRP leader Sam Rainsy from his attempted return to Cambodia via Thai territory. Both Thailand and Malaysia cited the principles of non-interference and an unwillingness to abet the political destabilisation of a fellow ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member state.


Associated Press and Reuters in their article, "Prayut bars Sam Rainsy as Asean spat spreads," would claim:

Thailand would not allow entry to Cambodian opposition founder Sam Rainsy, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Wednesday, after the self-exiled dissident said he planned to return to Cambodia via Bangkok.

The article would also claim:

Hun Sen has accused the opposition of fomenting a coup, and his government has arrested at least 48 activists with Sam Rainsy's banned opposition party this year. The party's last leader remains under house arrest on treason charges. 

Missing from Al Jazeera, AP and Reuters' reports and that of every other report from the Western media regarding Cambodia's opposition CNRP is the fact that "the party's last leader," Kem Sokha, himself had openly admitted that he was conspiring with the US government to overthrow the current Cambodian government making him an obvious traitor by any and every definition of the word.

Cambodia's Opposition Serves Washington's War on China  

The Phnom Penh Post in a 2017 article titled, “Kem Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear,” would go over the many admissions made by Kem Sokha.

He is quoted as admitting:

“…the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can changed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes.

“You know Milosevic had a huge numbers of tanks. But they changed things by using this strategy, and they take this experience for me to implement in Cambodia. But no one knew about this.”

“However, since we are now reaching at this stage, today I must tell you about this strategy. We will have more to continue and we will succeed.”

Kem Sokha would elaborate further, claiming:

“I do not do anything at my own will. Their experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.”

As previously reported, Kem Sokha's daughter, Kem Monovithya, has also openly worked with the US for years seeking the overthrow of the Cambodian government.

When Cambodia began its crackdown on both CNRP and the US-funded organisations supporting it, the US threatened sanctions and other punitive measures. Kem Monovithya would play a central role in promoting these punitive measures in Washington. 

The Phonom Post in a December 2017 article titled, "US says more sanctions on table in response to political crackdown," would claim:

...in Washington, a panel of “witnesses” convened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee – including Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya – called for additional action in response to the political crackdown. In a statement, Monovithya urged targeted financial sanctions against government officials responsible for undermining democracy. She also called on the US to suspend “any and all assistance for the central Cambodian Government”, while “continuing democracy assistance programs for civil society, particularly those engaged in election-related matters”.

Like her farther, Kem Monovithya's collaboration with the US government goes back much further. The Washington Post in a 2006 article titled, "While in U.S., Cambodians Get a Lesson on Rights From Home," would first admit:

Kem Sokha, a former Cambodian senator and official, heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, which is supported by U.S. government funds. The center has held public forums to hear complaints about conditions in Cambodia.

Regarding Kem Monovithya herself, the Washington Post would note:

Monovitha Kem, a business school graduate and aspiring lawyer, said she would lobby U.S. and international institutions to fight Hun Sen's decision. 

"I would like to see the charges dropped not just for my father, but for all other activists," she said in an interview Monday. "I hope they will amend the defamation law." 

Monovitha Kem has met with officials at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development and major human rights groups.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) are both subsidiaries of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, together with the US government itself, have supported myriad organisations engaged in subversive activities within Cambodia for years.

This includes Licadho, which is funded by both the UK government and the US via USAID. It also includes Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, both of which are funded by the US government and overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors chaired by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo himself. 

There is also the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, funded by NED subsidiaries Freedom House and IRI as well as the British Embassy and convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society Foundation.

Decades of US Meddling Coming to an End? 

Decades of US meddling in Cambodia's politics, including the creation of  Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha's opposition CNRP and organisations created and funded by the US government to support it, along with plans to overthrow the current Cambodian government to install CNRP into power, represents in reality political meddling many times worse than even the most imaginative accusations made against Russia or China in regards to their supposed meddling in US and European politics.

However, with Southeast Asia's recent and united stand against US designs against Cambodia, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of US meddling in Southeast Asia all together. But US meddling worldwide, including across Asia, is so extensive, embedded in local media, academia and politics, that it will take years more to fully uproot it from the region. 

While the malign influence of Wall Street, Washington, London and Brussels persists well beyond its borders continuing a legacy of colonialism that exploited and suppressed Southeast Asia for centuries, the foiling of an attempted US-backed coup in Cambodia owed to a united stand by regional nations offers promising hope that this malign influence is now finally in terminal decline.  

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US Meddling Continues in Cambodia, But With Setbacks

August 15, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Two Cambodian employees of US government-funded "Radio Free Asia" (RFA) face espionage charges for continuing to work for the foreign information operation even after the Cambodian government ordered it closed.

Qatari state media, Al Jazeera, in their article, "Espionage trial of two former RFA journalists starts in Cambodia," would report:

Former Radio Free Asia (RFA) reporters Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin were arrested in November 2017 after a late-night police raid on an apartment rented by the former. They were accused of supplying a foreign state with information, a charge that carries a prison sentence of between seven and 15 years. 

RFA, which is funded by the government of the United States, had closed its operations in Cambodia shortly before the arrests. The outlet was known for its critical coverage of the Cambodian government, including frequent reports on corruption and illegal logging.

Al Jazeera also admitted:

Both Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin admitted at Friday's hearing that they had continued sending videos and information to RFA after it had shut down, but they denied that this constituted espionage.

Human Rights Watch's (HRW) deputy Asia director Phil Robertson would make a statement published on the organisation's site claiming:

Chhin and Sothearin should never have had to face these bogus espionage charges, and all judicial restrictions on them should be lifted.

HRW's Robertson made these comments unironically after celebrating and making excuses for Facebook and Twitter's censorship of accounts and individuals critical of Western impropriety (including the dubious, often hypocritical work of HRW itself) worldwide.

Cambodian courts vowed to ignore the demands of foreign organisations like HRW, insisting instead they would use evidence and Cambodian law to reach a verdict, RFA's own article on the story reported.

US Meddling in Cambodia Was Extensive 

Amid continued hysteria and accusations of "Russian interference" levelled by the United States and its various functionaries against any and all opponents worldwide, the US itself has been involved in meddling in Cambodia's internal political affairs extensively.

Far from merely funding information operations like RFA, Voice of America and Cambodia Daily Cambodia has since shut down or co-opted, the US literally ran an entire political party with members operating out of Washington DC itself. It protected these proxies  from well-earned accusations and charges of sedition with fronts posing as "human rights" organisations also funded by the US government.

Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) leader Kem Sokha openly admitted to Washington's role in propping up his party and its bid to seize power in Cambodia not through elections, but through the same sort of destructive colour revolutions that have swept through Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The Phnom Penh Post in its article, "Kem Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear," would go over the many admissions made by Kem Sokha: 

“...the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can changed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes.

“You know Milosevic had a huge numbers of tanks. But they changed things by using this strategy, and they take this experience for me to implement in Cambodia. But no one knew about this.”

“However, since we are now reaching at this stage, today I must tell you about this strategy. We will have more to continue and we will succeed.”

Kem Sokha would elaborate further, claiming:

“I do not do anything at my own will. Their experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.”

Fronts posing as "human rights" organisations operating in Cambodia and running defence for CNRP and its supporters include  Licadho funded by USAID and the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) funded by US National Endowment for Democracy-subsidiary the International Republican Institute, Open Society, the British and Australian embassies as well as Canada Fund. 

Were Russia doing any of this in the United States, Washington's reaction would undoubtedly be swift and severe, and backed with full support from supposed "rights advocates" like Phil Robertson and Human Rights Watch. There would shuttered organisations, arrests, charges, trials and lengthy sentences handed out. Yet the United States openly subjects other nations to abuse it would not tolerate itself. 

The US reaction to the trial for former RFA employees and its overall attempts to condemn and reverse Cambodia's widening crackdown on foreign interference in its own internal political affairs is an exercise in both hypocrisy and "might makes right." Unfortunately for Washington, the potency of that reaction is diminishing in direct proportion to its diminishing "might" across Asia-Pacific.

Washington's involvement in Cambodia in the first place is aimed not only at co-opting the Cambodian people, their territory and resources, but also at surrounding China with either US client states or failed states unable to aid Beijing in its continued and steady rise upon the global stage. 

Washington's recent setbacks are demonstrative of how this policy of encirclement and containment is failing. While compromised "rights advocates" like Robertson attempt to portray Cambodia's recent trial as a miscarriage of justice, it in truth is indicative of a wider trend reversing injustice imposed upon nation's and their sovereignty by Washington and its proxies who have, until recently, operated largely with impunity. 

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.   

Cambodia Warns of Foreign Regime Change "At Any Cost"

July 10, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - US and European-driven regime change efforts persist even in Asia where socioeconomic progress and stability have been on the rise. So persistent are these efforts that regional leaders have openly warned about them recently.

Reuters in its July 4th article, "Cambodian PM says those seeking 'regime change' risk return to war," would claim:

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose government is accused of suppressing human rights, said on Thursday that foreigners were risking returning his country to war through what he called stirring up turmoil and seeking regime change.

The article also stated (my emphasis):

Cambodia had risen from poverty to becoming a lower middle income country, and it aimed to graduate to the upper middle income by 2030 and high income by 2050, he said. But some groups and institutions maintained “a single political agenda of regime change at any cost”, Hun Sen added. 

Reuters would continue by reiterating claims that the current Cambodian government is guilty of a variety of abuses including "trying to silence dissent" according to "U.N. experts" and the European Union.

What Reuters omits from its article is that virtually every aspect of this "dissent" is funded and directed by Washington.

Cambodian Dissent is Made in America 

Just as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen alluded to, many of the "dissidents silenced" are media platforms literally run by foreigners. This includes the US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America and Radio Free Asia as well as the previously American-owned and operated Cambodia Daily newspaper.

There are also political entities like the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) whose members regularly operate out of Washington D.C. itself.

CNRP leader Kem Sokha has openly admitted to Washington's role in propping up his party and its bid to seize power in Cambodia not through elections, but through the same sort of destructive colour revolutions that have swept through Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The Phnom Penh Post in its article, "Kem Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear," would go over the many admissions made by Kem Sokha: 

“...the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can changed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes.

“You know Milosevic had a huge numbers of tanks. But they changed things by using this strategy, and they take this experience for me to implement in Cambodia. But no one knew about this.”

“However, since we are now reaching at this stage, today I must tell you about this strategy. We will have more to continue and we will succeed.”

Kem Sokha would elaborate further, claiming:

“I do not do anything at my own will. Their experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.”

Beyond US-funded media and a political party virtually run out of Washington D.C., there are so-called nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) entirely dependent on US and European financial assistance and who use (some might say, abuse) "human rights advocacy" in a one-sided effort to advance the opposition's political agenda.

These include Licadho funded by USAID and the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) funded by US National Endowment for Democracy-subsidiary the International Republican Institute, Open Society, the British and Australian embassies as well as Canada Fund.

Mentioning any of this would have given Cambodian PM Hun Sen's comments not only crucial context, but also obvious justification to both his government's concerns and the measures they've taken to combat this extensive foreign interference. Instead, Reuters elected to omit this information from their article.


Hypocrisy 

In the climate of paranoia back West where Washington, London and Brussels all pose as fighting against nebulous foreign influence allegedly emanating from Moscow or Beijing, it is curious indeed that these same capitals would accuse Cambodia of violating "human rights" merely for stemming open, documented and very much admitted foreign meddling in its own internal political affairs.

If Western capitals can predicate an adversarial posture toward Russia and China on mere accusations of supposed "influence operations," why are nations like Cambodia labelled "human rights violators" for confronting open and extensive meddling from abroad within their own borders?

PM Hun Sen would also make another good point. Reuters would quote him as saying:

They always accuse the royal government of Cambodia of violating human rights in Cambodia even though human rights workers in their own countries are filled with xenophobia, racial discrimination, and mistreatment of immigrants.

This is in reference to the extreme, even absurd hypocrisy of Western nations singling out nations across the developing world as "human rights violators" while committing some of the worst abuses around the globe themselves. This is done not only back at home in Western nations as PM Hun Sen pointed out, but also abroad amid the many interventions the West involves itself in.

Western accusations are not made out of any genuine concern for human rights, but out of a cynical attempt to hide their political agenda behind such concern, often and ironically trampling human rights in the process.

Washington's War on Asian Independence 

US-European meddling in Cambodia is in itself disturbing. The capacity for this meddling to destabilise not only Cambodia but also its neighbours in Southeast Asia threatens the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of people.

What is equally disturbing is media organisations like Reuters deliberately omitting context to concerns Cambodia has voiced, attempting instead to portray the nation as making excuses to eliminate legitimate opposition instead of fighting very real and dangerous foreign interference.

As to why Cambodia as well as its ASEAN neighbours face ongoing US-European interference, we need only to look at growing ties between Beijing and Phnom Penh and the closing window Washington, London and Brussels face amid their attempts to reassert primacy in the region. 

Recent articles like Reuters' "US presses Cambodia over possible Chinese military presence," grant further insight into why the West is interested in regime change in Cambodia.

The article would claim:

A letter to the Cambodian defence minister, seen by Reuters, reflects concern in Washington about the Chinese military presence in Southeast Asia, where China is increasingly assertive over its contested claims in the South China Sea.

The letter from Joseph Felter, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, asked for more information on the decision to decline help to repair a training facility and boat depot at Ream Naval Base.

Neither China nor Cambodia, both nations located squarely in Asia-Pacific, owe Washington an explanation over bilateral ties or their activities within the region, a region thousands of miles away from Washington.

The article would claim Washington was concerned over the prospect of China establishing a military base in Cambodia.

For the US which maintains hundreds of military bases around the globe including in nations it is illegally occupying to be concerned over China possibly establishing its second base overseas (its first is in Djibouti) and one that would be located within Asia, well within a reasonable "sphere of influence" for Beijing, indicates just how far departed from rational foreign policy Washington has become.

The article also mentioned Cambodia's support for China amid US-led efforts to stir up conflict in the South China Sea.

Regime change aimed at Cambodia is clearly meant to reverse Cambodia's and the rest of the region's drift from beneath Western primacy toward regional independence with Beijing and its allies, not Washington, underwriting and benefiting from the region's future fortunes.

While Cambodia and its neighbours have had obvious and heated differences in the past, foreign interference in Cambodia, if successful, will only lead to successful interference among Cambodia's neighbours, friend and foe alike. The US is not involved in Asia-Pacific for "human rights" or to underwrite the region's self-determination, it is there to determine Asia-Pacific's future based on its own best interests. These interests include eliminating competitors at any cost.

PM Hun Sen's warning of foreign-backed opposition groups pursuing regime change "at any cost" is a microcosm of and warning to the region. If the US cannot control Cambodia outright and benefit from its resources and population, it will ensure no one else can either. And if the US cannot maintain primacy over Asia and all within the region, it will ensure instability and conflict prevents anyone else from doing so as well.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.   

West Fumes as US Meddling in Cambodian Elections is Foiled

August 1, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - It would be unthinkable for an American opposition party run openly out of Moscow to compete in American elections. It would be even more unthinkable for the Russian government to declare US elections illegitimate for disallowing a Moscow-backed party from running in American elections. 

Yet this is precisely what the US and the European Union have attempted to do in the wake of Cambodia's recent elections regarding an opposition party created by Washington and whose leadership calls Washington a second home.

US-EU Seek to Undermine Cambodian Election Results 
The BBC in their article, "Cambodia election: Ruling party claims landslide in vote with no main opposition," would claim: 

Critics have called the vote a sham as the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which narrowly lost the last election, has been dissolved.

The US said the poll was "flawed". 

"We are profoundly disappointed in the government's choice to disenfranchise millions of voters, who are rightly proud of their country's development over the past 25 years," a statement from the White House said. 

The US will consider placing visa restrictions on more government officials, it added. The EU has said it is considering economic sanctions.

However, the BBC never explains why the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved.

Had it, Washington and Brussels' statements would have been immediately rendered hypocritical and Cambodia's decision to dissolve CNRP more than warranted. This is because CNRP is openly run out of Washington, with US support, for the expressed aim of undermining and eventually overthrowing the current Cambodian government.

Cambodia's Opposition is Run From Washington 

Kem Sokha who had led CNRP until its dissolution had travelled to Washington annually since as early as 1993 to seek support from the US. He also repeatedly announced receiving direct US support, as well as plans for subverting the Cambodian government with US backing. 

The Phnom Penh Post in its article, "Kem Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear," would go over the many admissions made by Kem Sokha: 

Sokha says he has visited the US at the government’s request every year since 1993 to learn about the “democratisation process” and that “they decided” he should step aside from politics to create change in Cambodia.

“They said if we want to change the leadership, we cannot fight the top. Before changing the top level, we need to uproot the lower one. We need to change the lower level first. It is a political strategy in a democratic country,” he said.

Regarding US assistance, Kem Sokha would reveal:

“And, the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can changed the dictator Slobodan Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes.

“You know Milosevic had a huge numbers of tanks. But they changed things by using this strategy, and they take this experience for me to implement in Cambodia. But no one knew about this.”

“However, since we are now reaching at this stage, today I must tell you about this strategy. We will have more to continue and we will succeed.”

Kem Sokha would elaborate even further, claiming:

“I do not do anything at my own will. Their experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.”

Kem Sokha's daughter, Kem Monovithya, has also openly worked with the US to seek the overthrow of the Cambodian government.

When Cambodia began its crackdown on both CNRP and the US-funded organisations supporting it, the US threatened sanctions and other punitive measures. Kem Monovithya would play a central role in promoting these punitive measures in Washington. 

The Phonom Post in a December 2017 article titled, "US says more sanctions on table in response to political crackdown," would claim:

...in Washington, a panel of “witnesses” convened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee – including Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya – called for additional action in response to the political crackdown. In a statement, Monovithya urged targeted financial sanctions against government officials responsible for undermining democracy. She also called on the US to suspend “any and all assistance for the central Cambodian Government”, while “continuing democracy assistance programs for civil society, particularly those engaged in election-related matters”.

Like her farther, Kem Monovithya's collaboration with the US government goes back much further. The Washington Post in a 2006 article titled, "While in U.S., Cambodians Get a Lesson on Rights From Home," would first admit:

Kem Sokha, a former Cambodian senator and official, heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, which is supported by U.S. government funds. The center has held public forums to hear complaints about conditions in Cambodia.

Regarding Kem Monovithya herself, the Washington Post would note:

Monovitha Kem, a business school graduate and aspiring lawyer, said she would lobby U.S. and international institutions to fight Hun Sen's decision. 

"I would like to see the charges dropped not just for my father, but for all other activists," she said in an interview Monday. "I hope they will amend the defamation law." 

Monovitha Kem has met with officials at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the U.S. Agency for International Development and major human rights groups.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) are both subsidiaries of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which, together with the US government itself, have supported myriad subversive activities within Cambodia for years.

This includes a number of organisations cited in a May 2018 Washington Post article attempting to deny claims of US meddling by citing almost exclusively US-funded fronts operating in Cambodia.

This includes Licadho, which is funded by both the UK government and the US via USAID. It also includes Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, both of which are funded by the US government and overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors chaired by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo himself. There is also the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, funded by NED subsidiaries Freedom House and IRI as well as the British Embassy and convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society Foundation.

Literally decades of US meddling in Cambodia's politics, including the creation of both Kem Sokha's opposition party and organisations created and funded by the US government to support it, along with plans to overthrow the current Cambodian government to install CNRP into power, represents in reality political meddling many times worse than even the most imaginative accusations made against Russia in regards to meddling in US and European politics.


US Meddling Seeks Chinese Encirclement 

US interests in Cambodia go beyond merely controlling the nation's people and resources, it stems primarily from a much wider and long-term plan to encircle China with client states serving Washington's vision of perpetual American primacy in Asia.

Along with allegations from US-European leadership and their respective media conglomerations attempting to condemn Cambodia's recent elections as "illegitimate," US-European media made little effort to hide equal condemnation regarding China's inroads into Cambodia recently.

Reuters in an article titled, "Cambodia's Hun Sen has an important election backer: China," would claim:

China announced a major infrastructure project in Cambodia midway through its election campaign and denounced proposed economic sanctions by the European Union on the Southeast Asian nation.

China’s ambassador in Phnom Penh also attended a ruling party rally in the Cambodian capital, according to a media report.

The flurry of moves during the three-week campaign shows China is leaving nothing to chance to ensure its most loyal ally in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s long-time ruler Hun Sen, comfortably wins Sunday’s poll, political analysts said.

Thus, while many may be tempted to defend US meddling in Cambodia as they have similar US meddling elsewhere as merely "promoting democracy" and "human rights," it is clear that US meddling in Cambodia sought to prevent China from building constructive ties with a friendly government by creating a client state that would spur Beijing in favour of Washington.

Reuters complains that Cambodia has supported Beijing over Washington amid ongoing South China Sea tensions. Reuters even obliquely suggests that infrastructure deals made between China and Cambodia during the election campaign constituted some form of political meddling. No mention of overt US meddling in Cambodian politics, including the creation and sponsorship of the main opposition party, CNRP is made in Reuters' article.

While Reuters claims Cambodian relations with the West includes "decades of diplomatic effort and billions of dollars of aid and investment," Cambodia has very little to show for it. Claims that the West "bristled at human rights violations and electoral irregularities in Cambodia" opened the door for closer Chinese-Cambodian ties begs belief considering no such human rights-based "bristling" occurs in regards to Western ties with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the current government in Ukraine.

It is clear that the US and Europe attempted to reassert control over Cambodia through the co-opting of its government and institutions and that much of the West's supposed "investments" in Cambodia were directed into this political meddling. Conversely, China is proposing actual infrastructure projects like motorways, airports and electricity distribution networks, all areas Cambodia is critically lacking in, even after "billions of dollars of aid and investment" from the West.

Cambodia, through its ties with China and its own straightforward approach to uprooting foreign meddling in its internal affairs has averted the latest attempt by the US and Europe to destabilise the nation and exert control over its future from Washington and Brussels. Other nations in the region, including neighbouring Thailand and Malaysia, still face extensive US-European meddling including persistent street movements and large networks of US-funded media platforms, legal firms and even political parties seeking to destabilise, and if possible, overthrow local governments and independent institutions.

Only through fully recognising the threat and working together can Southeast Asia ensure the age of American-European colonisation has ended for good and a new era of multipolarism and self-determination can begin.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.