Is Cambodia slipping out of China’s orbit?
A new generation of leaders could be more receptive to the West
During Donald Trump’s first term as America’s president, Cambodia was a byword in Washington for a Chinese satrapy, or client state. In exchange for at least $1bn in aid each year from 2016 to 2020, American officials suspected the small South-East Asian country of doing a deal to host a Chinese naval base, only the second outside China. They muttered, too, that the country had sold its veto in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to China, stopping the bloc from taking a stand against Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Khmer fugue”
From the February 1st 2025 edition
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