An Improbable State - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 209

Hong Kong and southern China have established lucrative connections with members of
Cambodia's Chinese-speaking Sino-Khmer elite.
Things have come a long way in two decades. In late 1991, when Chinese diplomats
accompanied Prince Sihanouk on his return to Cambodia from Beijing, history still cast
a long shadow. Throughout the 1980s, while China continued to back the Khmer Rouge,
the PRK had openly discriminated against Cambodia's Chinese community and Hun Sen
had described China as “the root of everything that was evil” in the country. 8 After Ti-
ananmen Square and the end of the Cold War, however, Chinese leaders jettisoned Pol Pot
and returned to the foreign policy goals of imperial times: unifying the realm by secur-
ing peace and stability on China's southern periphery and forestalling Taiwan's moves to-
ward formal independence. Hun Sen's rise in the 1990s suddenly made him an attractive
partner. Not only did he welcome Chinese aid and investment; he also shared Beijing's
skepticism about Western calls for democratic reform.
Hun Sen's July 1997 putsch against Prince Ranariddh, and the chilly Western reaction,
paved the way for the expansion of diplomatic ties. Claiming that Funcinpec had received
covert support from Taiwan, Hun Sen shut down the Taiwanese trade office in Phnom
Penh, rebuffing a government that was then one of Cambodia's largest investors. Beijing
was pleased by the gesture. A few months later, China delivered 116 military cargo trucks
and 70 jeeps valued at $2.8 million, offsetting the freeze in military aid imposed by the
US and Western governments after Ranariddh's ouster. 9
In November 2000, Chinese President Jiang Zemin paid a landmark visit to Cambod-
ia—the first by a Chinese leader since 1963. He was greeted by the usual rent-a-crowd of
cheering schoolchildren and fluttering red pennants, a scene of confected celebration one
analyst compared to “a festive papal visit to a devoutly Catholic nation.” 10 In the florid
ceremonies that marked the visit, neither Jiang nor Hun Sen made any public mention of
the two countries' strained history. A handful of protestors who turned out and hoisted
banners protesting China's support for Pol Pot were quickly bundled out of sight by po-
lice. 11 The Khmer Rouge period was forgotten, a bloody historical slate hosed clean with
promises of cash and political support. Hun Sen told Jiang that Cambodia's relations with
China were “a precious gift,” and “of long-term and strategic significance for our coun-
try.” 12
Chinese cash started flowing into Cambodia. Official delegations shuttled between
Beijing and Phnom Penh, brokering loans, releasing sunny communiqués, and spouting
paeans to Sino-Cambodian amity. China wrote off millions in Cambodian debt dating
back to the 1960s. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited in April 2006, along with economic
agreements totaling $600 million. Two years later Cambodia hosted lavish celebrations
marking the fiftieth anniversary of diplomatic relations with Beijing. In a cable to Wash-
ington, US Ambassador Carol Rodley described the extent of the official events, which